contingent, a. and n.
(kənˈtɪndʒənt)
[a. F. contingent 14th c. (Oresme), or ad. L. contingent-em touching together or on all sides, lying near, contiguous, coming into contact or connexion, befalling, happening, coming to pass, pres. pple. of contingĕre to touch together, come into contact, etc., f. con- + tangĕre to touch. (The n belongs to the present stem, the root being tag-, in comp. tig-: cf. contact n., contaminate, contigue.) The subst. use is also in F.]
A. adj. I. From literal sense of L. contingere.
† 1. a. Touching each other, in contact; tangential.
contingent line = tangent line; in Dialling a line crossing the substyle or substylar line at right angles.
| 1570 Billingsley Euclid iii. Introd. 81 It teacheth..which are circles contingent, and which are cutting the one the other. 1571 Digges Pantom. i. xvii. E iij b. 1593 T. Fale Dialling A iij, The Contingent or touch line..in all Dialls is drawn squirewise to the Substile. 1691 T. H[ale] Acc. New Invent. 123 Portions of Circles unto which the remaining strait part may be a contingent line. 1703 Moxon Mech. Exerc. 319 On the Substilar Line chuse a point as at C, and thro' that point draw a Line as long as you can perpendicular..(which is called the Contingent Line). 1703 T. N. City & C. Purchaser 49 They strew Sea coal..betwixt all the Rows of Bricks; for they are not laid Contingent in their Vertical Rows. Ibid. 162 The corner of the second Tile is contingent with the 1st. |
b. fig. ? Having contact or connexion. Obs.
| 1721 D'Urfey New Opera's 226, I..daily gave my self a Name Contingent with my Father's Fame. |
II. From L. contingere in sense ‘to happen’.
2. a. Liable to happen or not; of uncertain occurrence or incidence.
| c 1400 Test. Love ii. ix. (1561) 303, I wote it is contingent, it maye fal an other. 1475 Bk. Noblesse (1860) 50 It were but as contingent and of no necessite, that is to sey, as likely to be not as to be. 1628 T. Spencer Logick 218 Vnto man, all future things are contingent. 1684 Contempl. State Man i. vii. (1699) 73 If Death were only contingent, and not certain, yet, because it might happen, it ought to make us very careful and solicitous. 1692 R. L'Estrange Josephus' Antiq. viii. ii. (1733) 202 Deer, Birds, Fishes, and other contingent Curiosities of the Chace. 1790 Burke Fr. Rev. 121 So much actual crime against so much contingent advantage. 1860 Emerson Cond. Life, Wealth Wks. (Bohn) II. 354 All salaries are reckoned on contingent as well as on actual services. 1861 Geo. Eliot Silas M. 23 The results of confession were not contingent, they were certain; whereas betrayal was not certain. |
b. Incidental (to).
| 1747 Gentl. Mag. XVII. 464 Contingent expenses with which the generals for fifty years past have filled the books of your office. 1833 J. C. Hare in Philol. Mus. II. 122 The rights and obligations contingent to the colonus were of three kinds. |
† 3. Happening. Obs.
| 1532 More Confut. Barnes viii. Wks. 786/2 The final effect of thinges here contingent or happening. |
4. Happening or coming by chance; not fixed by necessity or fate; accidental, fortuitous.
| 1613 R. C. Table Alph. (ed. 3), Contingent, happening by chance. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. ii. ii. iii. (1651) 258 Columbus did not find out America by chance, but God directed him..it was contingent to him, but necessary to God. 1677 Hale Prim. Orig. Man. i. iii. 78 The production of mixt Bodies either by spontaneous or contingent coalition of various particles of Matter. 1754 Edwards Freed. Will i. iii. 20 Any thing is said to be contingent or to come to pass by Chance or Accident, in the original meaning of such Words, when its Connection with its Causes or Antecedents, according to the establish'd Course of Things, is not discerned. 1799 Kirwan Geol. Ess. 100 By various local and contingent events. |
† 5. Not determined by necessity in regard to action or existence; free. Obs.
| 1660 R. Coke Power & Subj. 134 God..by a..foresight or knowledg does often determin necessary effects from contingent causes. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. 3 They suppose that Necessity is inwardly essential to all Agents whatsoever, and that Contingent Liberty is πρᾶγµα ἀνυπόστατον, a Thing Impossible or Contradictious. 1796 Bp. Watson Apol. Bible x. 368 If human actions are not Contingent, what think you of the morality of actions? |
6. Subject to or at the mercy of accidents; liable to chance and change.
| a 1703 Burkitt On N.T. Acts xiv. 20 The breath of the people (that contingent judge of good and evil, which rather attend[s] the vain than the virtuous). 1744 Harris Three Treat. Wks. (1841) 10 Call those things..which are liable to change and motion, contingent natures; and those which are not liable, necessary natures. 1745 De Foe's Eng. Tradesman I. xiv. 118 The contingent nature of trade renders every tradesman liable to disaster. 1857 Geo. Eliot Amos Barton v. in Blackw. Mag. Feb. 156/1 In that toppling and contingent state, in which a very slight push from a malignant destiny would utterly upset it. |
7. Metaph. a. Not of the nature of necessary truth; true only under existing conditions. contingent matter (in Logic): the subject-matter of a proposition which is not necessarily or universally true.
| 1588 Fraunce Lawiers Log. i. ii. 5 Discovering the validitie of everie reason, bee it necessary, whereof cometh science, or contingent, whence proceedeth opinion. 1628 T. Spencer Logick 157 A true axiome is Contingent..when it is in such sort true, that it may also at sometime be false. 1656 tr. Hobbes' Elem. Philos. (1839) 38 A contingent proposition is that, which at one time may be true, at another time false; as every crow is black. 1785 Reid Int. Powers ii. xx. 329 The truths attested by our senses..are contingent and limited to time and place. 1856 Ferrier Inst. Metaph. xxii. §1. 385 The region of contingent truth—of truth, in regard to cognition, which might conceivably have been other than it is. 1877 E. Caird Philos. Kant v. 98 Leibnitz draws a wide distinction between contingent and necessary truth, between truths of fact, and truths of reason. |
b. That does not exist of itself, but in dependence on something else.
| 1785 Reid Int. Powers vi. i. 414 The judgements we form are either of things necessary, or of things contingent. 1788 ― Act. Powers i. v. Wks. II. 523/1 Contingent existence is that which depended upon the power, and will of its cause. 1857 Buckle Civiliz. I. iii. 146 The senses only supply what is finite and contingent. 1877 E. Caird Philos. Kant ii. xvi. 573 The contingent, in the sense in which that word is applied to objects of experience, means that which has a cause in something other than itself, something which existed previously. |
c. Non-essential.
| 1628 T. Spencer Logick 60 It floweth therefrom, not as a Contingent motion, but as a naturall emanation. a 1687 Petty Pol. Arith. (1690) 94 As these Impediments are contingent, so they are also removeable. 1864 Bowen Logic i. 8 The Concept is the Intuition stripped of its contingent or unessential attributes. |
8. Dependent for its occurrence or character on or upon some prior occurrence or condition.
| 1613 Salkeld Treat. Angels 359 Those things which are altogether contingent and dependent of mans will. 1654 H. L'Estrange Chas. I (1655) 89 In things contingent upon free and voluntary agents, all the Devils in hell can but blunder. 1838 De Morgan Ess. Probab. 51, 1st event; certainly happens, and gives either H or T..2nd event; does not certainly happen, but is contingent upon the first throw being T. 1875 Stubbs Const. Hist. II. xvii. 567 The continuance of the aid is made contingent on the continuance of the war. 1875 Lyell Princ. Geol. II. ii. xxix. 129 The phenomena..may be simply an accident contingent on the principal cause of disturbance. |
9. Law. Dependent on a pre-contemplated probability; provisionally liable to exist or take effect; conditional; not absolute.
| 1710 Lond. Gaz. No. 4735/4 Then to Trustees to preserve the Contingent Remainders. 1767 Blackstone Comm. II. 169 Contingent or executory remainders are where the estate in remainder is limited to take effect, either to a dubious and uncertain person, or upon a dubious and uncertain event; so that the particular estate may chance to be determined, and the remainder never take effect. 1800 Addison Amer. Law Rep. 33 The debt was contingent, and the contingency had not happened. 1833 Marryat P. Simple (1863) 191 Still we are not looked upon as actual, but only contingent, inheritors of the title. 1844 Williams Real Prop. (1877) 263 The general opinion appears to be in favour of the antiquity of contingent remainders. |
10. contingent force: = B. 5 b.
| 1856 Calcutta Rev. XXVI. Mar. 556 In 1777 this Contingent force was entirely transferred to the Company. |
B. n.
1. A thing coming by chance, an accident.
| 1548 R. Hutten Sum of Diuin. C j b, If God be not the cause of synne, are the contingentes or changinges to be graunted? 1553 S. Cabot Ordinances in Hakluyt Voy. (1589) 261 In such purchases or contingents as shall fortune to any one of them. 1637 Heywood Dialogues 300 All contingents brooke with patience. 1743 Lond. & Country Brew. iii. (ed. 2) 230 It..keeps the Body safe..against the Putrefaction of hot Airs, Liquids, Earths, or any opposite Contingent. 1788 [see 2]. |
2. A thing that may or may not happen, a possibility of the future.
| 1623 Sir E. Digby in Rushw. Hist. Coll. (1659) I. 132 The eyes of Humane providence cannot see beyond its horizon; It cannot ascertain future Contingents. 1656 Hobbes Lib. Necess. & Chance (1841) 225 By contingents, I understand all things which may be done and may not be done, may happen or may not happen, by reason of the indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes. a 1711 Ken Hymnarium Poet Wks. 1721 II. 31 Decreed Contingents they remain, Not link'd in any fatal Chain. 1788 Reid Act. Powers iv. x, There seems to me to be a great analogy between the prescience of future contingents, and the memory of past contingents. |
† 3. An accessory which may or may not be present. Obs.
| 1770 Langhorne Plutarch, Cato Major (1879) I. 377/2 He [Cato] considered eloquence as a valuable contingent. |
4. A thing contingent or dependent on the existence or occurrence of something else.
| a 1848 R. W. Hamilton Rew. & Punishm. i. (1853) 62 Reward and punishment are contingents. |
5. a. ‘The proportion that falls to any person upon a division’ (J.). [So in Fr.]
| 1727 Chambers Cycl., Contingent is also a term of relation for the quota that falls to any person upon a division. Each prince of Germany, in time of war, is to furnish so many men, so much money, and munition for his contingent. 1775 Burke Sp. Conc. Amer. Wks. 1842 I. 202 Either..you settle a permanent contingent, which will and must be trifling; and then you have no effectual revenue: or you change the quota at every exigency. 1818 Jas. Mill Brit. India I. ii. iii. 123 Officers are appointed..for collecting the contingents for the expense of the state. |
b. esp. The proportion of troops furnished by each of several contracting powers; a force contributed to form part of an army or navy.
| 1727 [see prec.]. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. II. 225 The states of the empire must furnish their respective quotas of soldiers, called their contingents. 1799 Wellington in Gurw. Disp. I. 14 The Nizam's Contingent as this force was denominated. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) I. v. 383 Henry and Francis had been called upon to furnish a contingent against Solyman. 1867 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1876) I. vi. 513 Thirty-two ships, probably a new contingent just come from Denmark. |
c. transf. and fig. (cf. contribution.)
| 1817 Coleridge Biog. Lit. 219 That my history would add its contingent to the enforcement of one important truth. 1856 Dickens Ordeal 22 No cheerful glow came thro' crimson curtains, as a generous contingent from some warm cosy nest to the bleak, bare, outside night. 1891 Leeds Mercury 25 May 5/2 The London contingent of the chorus numbers 2,500. |
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▸ contingent fee n. Law (a) an estate for which inheritance is contingent on other factors; cf. sense A. 9 (obs.); (b) orig. U.S. = contingency fee n. at contingency n. Additions
| 1685 Arguments Late Ld. Chancellor Nottingham ii. 27 It is not impossible to limit a *Contingent Fee upon a Fee. 1827J. B. Gibson in T. Sergeant & W. Rawle Pennsylvania Reporter (1829) XVI. 220 The counsel may have had no personal interest in the event; but, if any thing of this sort had been shown, such for instance as a contingent fee, it would have afforded ground for a challenge. 1879 Law Rep.: Chancery Div.: Appeal Cases (Lexis) 14 May 131 The tenant for life—that is, the mortgagor—died in 1844, having survived both of her daughters, so that the contingent fee never became a vested fee, and therefore the ultimate fee descended to the heir-at-law of the original testator. 1992 D. Pannick Advocates vi. 189 The opposition to contingent fees has focused on the undesirability of lawyers agreeing to receive a high percentage of any damages which might be recovered by their client. |
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▸ contingent liability n. a potential financial liability; (Accounting) a future financial liability which may only arise in specific circumstances or is difficult to quantify, but must be accounted for.
| 1798 C. Durnford & E. H. East Rep. Cases King's Bench VII. 366 Such debt is proveable although the consideration for it be a future *contingent liability. 1844 Times 22 June 8/3 The separate covenants..created a separate debt from the date of such covenant, and not merely a contingent liability to pay after notice was given. 1897 Middleton (N.Y.) Daily Argus 15 Apr. 1/5 A contingent liability upon the indorsement of commercial paper of about $12,000. 1952 Law & Contemp. Probl. 17 10 Some..assume a contingent liability which may or may not result in actual payments to policyholders. 2002 D. Hey-Cunningham Financial Statem. Demystified (ed. 3) vi. 148 Items that probably will not occur or cannot be reliably measured are included as contingent liabilities. |