v. arch. [ad. L. assevērāre to assert seriously, f. as- = ad- to + sevērus serious, severe. Cf. It. asseuerare (Florio, 1598).] To asseverate: a. a thing to be, or that it is.
1581. Campion, in Confer., IV. (1584), D d iiij. The Jewes asseuering the obseruation of the lawe … to be necessarie.
1603. Harsnet, Pop. Impost., xxiii. 166. We doe not Assever that the Devil cannot say a Troth.
1637. Bastwick, Litany, II. 8. King James absolutely assevers … that the Pope is Antichrist.
b. with simple obj.
a. 1618. Sylvester, Job Triumphant, III. 268. O! that my words (the words I now assever) Were writ.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., II. xxvii. § 8, Wks. 1727, I. 145. I had heard many Particulars … assever’d by People hard to be discredited.
1826. E. Irving, Babylon, II. VII. 222. The question being … assevered of the vision generally.
