indigency
(ˈɪndɪdʒənsɪ)
[ad. L. indigēntia: see prec. and -ency.]
The quality or condition of being indigent.
† 1. Want, deficiency; need; = indigence 1. Obs.
| a 1619 M. Fotherby Atheom. i. v. §4 (1622) 38 The chiefest tye, and bond of all humane society, is neither reason, nor speech, nor indigency; but religion and piety. c 1624 Lushington Recant. Serm. in Phenix (1708) II. 492 Man ceaseth to be Man, if we conceive him All-sufficient; God only is so..Man's Being and his Good is Indigency and Want. 1714 J. Fortescue-Aland Pref. to Fortescue's Abs. & Lim. Mon. 12 In the Infancy of the State and Indigency of Laws. |
2. spec. Want of the means of subsistence;
= indigence 2.
| 1631 Weever Anc. Fun. Mon. 255 Great want and indigencie. 1684 T. Burnet Th. Earth ii. 183 Where there is indigency, there is sollicitude, and distraction, and uneasiness, and fear. 1692 Bentley Boyle Lect. 38 That the common heathens had such mean apprehensions about the indigency of their gods, it appears plainly..from Aristophanes's Plutus, and the Dialogues of Lucian. |
| 1906 Daily Chron. 25 Sept. 6/7 The Government has set up an Indigency Inquiry Commission. 1924 Glasgow Herald 7 Feb. 7 Unemployment and indigency..existed on a scale that was entirely disproportionate to the size of the white population. |
† 3. with
pl. A want, a need;
= indigence 3.
Obs.| 1651 J. Rocket Chr. Subj. vii. (1658) 90 Ready to supply their indigencies, to pardon their infirmities. 1713 Derham Phys.-Theol. x. 459 All which various Methods being so nicely accommodated to the Indigencies of those helpless Vegetables. 1721 R. Keith tr. à Kempis' Vall. Lillies 52 Who is there that is found like to the ‘poor (Jesus)’ as to all his Indigencies? Verily none. |