Also 7 syn-, sindicat. [ad. F. syndicat office of syndic, body of syndics, † censure, = Pr. sendegat, It. sindacato rendering of accounts, order, permission, Sp. sindicado syndicate, sindicato office of syndic, ad. med.L. *syndicatus, f. syndicus SYNDIC: see -ATE1.]
1. The office, status, or jurisdiction of a syndic.
1656. Blount, Glossogr. (from Cotgrave), Syndicat, the office or degree of a Syndick.
1689. Burnet, Tracts, I. 10. Being of the little Council leads one to the Sindicat.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Syndic, The Syndicate comes by Turn to sixteen Persons.
2. A council or body of syndics; spec. a university committee appointed for some specific duty (see SYNDIC sb. 2); also, a meeting of such a body.
1624. Darcie, Birth of Heresies, To Rdr. The Venetians … haue a supreame Magistracie, which they call a Syndicate, that once in a few yeeres, suruey all the Offices and Dignities in their Common-wealth.
1832. trans. Sismondi’s Ital. Rep., xi. 246. They were obliged to render an account of their administration before a syndicate charged with an examination of their conduct.
1835. in Willis & Clark, Cambridge (1886), III. 115. The Syndicate appointed ‘to consider and report to the Senate, upon … the Library, &c.’ … recommend the appointment of a special Syndicate for making enquiries [etc.]. Ibid., 116. A Room for the Vice-Chancellor for holding Syndicates or other uses.
1861. Ld. Brougham, Brit. Const., App. iii. (1862), 429. The office of the Syndicate [in the Dutch Republic] was to watch over the Constitution established by law.
3. A combination of capitalists or financiers entered into for the purpose of prosecuting a scheme requiring large resources of capital, esp. one having the object of obtaining control of the market in a particular commodity. Hence, more widely, a combination of persons formed for the promotion of an enterprise; esp. a combination for the acquisition of articles, etc., and their simultaneous publication in a number of periodicals; also, a combination of newspapers controlled by such a body.
1865. Pall Mall G., 26 Oct. The shares of the promoters … are thrown into a common stock, and put at the disposal of a secret committee, called by the harmless and, indeed, rather pretty name of a ‘syndicate.’ Our language owes this term, we believe, to certain French financiers.
1876. World, V. No. 109. 5. Extensive purchases of railroad stocks were made by Syndicates.
1877. Giffen, Stock Exch. Securities, 44. A ‘syndicate’ may be taken as a general alias for any combination of speculators on the Stock Exchange to force prices in one direction or the other. It is oftenest used in the narrower sense of a combination or partnership to introduce and sell a newly-created security to the public.
1880. Standard, 29 Nov. The conclusion of the contract with a powerful Syndicate for raising £8,000,000 to complete the Northern Pacific Railway in three months.
1889. Sat. Rev., 16 March, 300/1. Such a syndicate of quacks and dupes as those who have lately undertaken to run Mr. Parnell.
1889. Public Opinion (U.S.), 16 Feb. What are called newspaper syndicates are rapidly extending their field of action. By the establishment of offices not only in America, but at Paris, Berlin, Vienna,… they are able at one stroke to confer world-wide fame on any author whose work is at their disposal.
1890. J. Hatton, By Order of Czar (1891), 108. It’s like a bear transaction against a strong syndicate.
1891. Athenæum, 12 Sept., 356/3. The first instalment … will appear next month in a ‘syndicate’ of English and American newspapers.
