[f. prec. sb.]
1. trans. Originally, to provide a fund (see FUND sb. 5) for the regular payment of the interest on (an amount of public debt); hence, to convert (a floating debt) into a more or less permanent debt at a fixed rate of interest.
1776. [see FUNDED ppl. a.].
1789. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), II. 584. If they fund their public debt judiciously I believe they will be able to borrow any sums they please.
1802. Addington, in G. Rose, Diaries (1860), I. 5134. He states the necessity of raising £5,000,000 for the service of the year, by exchequer bills, which he says he shall either fund at the end of the session or borrow money to pay off.
1845. McCulloch, Taxation, III. ii. (1852), 454. Had it been funded in a six and a quarter or six and a half per cent. stock, the interest might have been reduced five and twenty years ago to 4 or 41/2 per cent.
2. To put into a fund or store (see FUND sb. 3 b); to collect; to store (immaterial things).
18067. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), VII. Introd. I have been little in a humour for the tranquil drudgery of noting them down in my tablets;I have funded a few loose agonies, however. [? Allusion to sense 1.]
1845. Ford, Handbk. Spain, I. 50. Every day and everywhere we are unconsciously funding a stock of treasures and pleasures of memory.
1879. Family Herald, XLIII. 109. A reserve of lion-like courage was funded ready for use in that dull mass of matter.
3. To put (money) in the funds (see FUND sb. 5 b); to invest.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, II. 48. I. R. sent a hundred pounds over to his father who funded it in his sons name.
4. intr. To fund up: to pay up, provide funds.
1888. Fenn, Man with Shadow, II. xix. 223. You will have to fund up among the rest, if you dont want to see your poor parson in rags.
Hence Funding ppl. a., in sense 1.
a. 1852. Moore, Country Dance & Quad., 98. [John Bull] unfleeced by funding block heads.