proxy

▪ I. proxy, n.
    (ˈprɒksɪ)
    Forms: 5 procusie, prokecye, 6 prockesy; 5 proccy, proxci, 6–7 proxi, -ie, -ye, (6 proxe, 7 procsey), 6– proxy.
    [= proc'cy, contracted from procuracy, as Proctor from Procurator.]
    I. 1. The agency of one who acts by appointment instead of another; the action of a substitute or deputy: = procuracy 1, procuration 2.
    Chiefly in phr. by proxy, by the agency of another; by or through a substitute; not in person.

c 1440 Promp. Parv. 414/2 Prokecye, procuracia. 1530 Palsgr. 258/2 Prockesy, procuration. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VI 146 b, [They] by proxie affied the young Lady. 1628 Wither Brit. Rememb. 234 The voice by Proxi hold I not the least. 1647 N. Bacon Disc. Govt. Eng. i. lxvi. (1739) 155 They..appeared either personally or by proxy. 1762–71 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) III. 193 Not content to acquire glory by proxy. 1850 H. Martineau Hist. Peace II. iv. xiii. 174 The marriage had taken place by proxy. 1857 Toulmin Smith Parish 170 Which latter may even vote by proxy.

    2. † a. A document empowering a person to represent and act for another; a letter of attorney: = procuracy 2, procuration 2 b. Obs. exc. as in b.

c 1460 Oseney Reg. 149 By A procuratour..in whos procusies whas i-conteyned that [etc.]. c 1475 Harl. Contin. Higden (Rolls) VIII. 501 This proccy redde and expressede, syr Iohn Busche, speker..rehersede þese wordes. 1484 Indenture in G. T. Clark Cartæ Glamorgan (1893) IV. 396 A proxci ofe theire fulle auctorite commyttede to the same Richarde. 1561 Nottingham Rec. IV. 126 A sufficient proxye or letter of atturney. 1726 Ayliffe Parergon 421 The Warrant and Authority..which we in English call a Proxy.

    b. spec. A writing authorizing a person to vote instead of another, at an election, a meeting of shareholders, etc., or as formerly in the House of Lords; hence, a vote so given. (Cf. also 4.)

1587 Harrison England ii. viii. (1877) i. 175 The consent of this [upper] house is giuen by each man seuerallie, first for himselfe..then..for so manie as he hath letters and proxies directed vnto him. 1642 Chas. I Answ. to 19 Propos. both Ho. Parl. 25 They shall not be admitted to sit in the House of Peers, but onely to give their Proxies to such Protestant Lords as they shall chuse. 1648 Art. Peace xi. in Milton's Wks. (1851) IV. 517 That no Nobleman or Peer of this Realm..shall be hereafter capable of more Proxies then two, and that blank Proxies shall be hereafter totally disallowed. 1808 Hansard's Parl. Debates X. 1053 The house then divided on lord Arden's motion: Contents 52, Proxies 32—84; Non-contents 45, Proxies 39—84. The numbers..being equal, the non-contents, according to the usage of the house, carried it. 1856 Emerson Eng. Traits, Aristocr. Wks. (Bohn) II. 82 Has not the Duke of Wellington at this moment..the proxies of fifty peers in his pocket? 1868 Jrnls. Ho. Lords 31 Mar. 99/2 Standing Order xxxii a. Ordered, That the Practice of calling for Proxies on a Division shall be discontinued.

1832 Lewis Use & Ab. Pol. Terms xii. 97 Representation, in its primary political sense, means..holding another's proxy. 1840 Arnold in Life & Corr. (1844) II. ix. 201, I cannot hesitate for an instant which side to take, and I will send you my proxy without a moment's hesitation. 1880 Beeton's Everybody's Lawyer 1287 Whoever votes upon the authority of an unstamped proxy is liable to the same penalty as the person who executed it. 1900 Whitaker's Alm. 433 Stamps and Taxes Proxy to vote at a meeting 0. 0. 1d.

    3. a. A person appointed or authorized to act instead of another; an attorney, substitute, representative, agent. (Cf. proctor¹ 2, procurator¹ 2.)

1614 Jackson Creed iii. xxxii. §4 They..thus absolutely betrouth them to his Proxy or principall Agent here on earth. a 1618 Sylvester Elegie to M. D. Hill 178 Make mee thy Proxie. 1765 Blackstone Comm. I. ii. 168 Another privilege is, that every peer..may make another lord of parliament his proxy, to vote for him in his absence. 1812 Wellington in Gurw. Desp. (1838) IX. 237, I am very much..flattered by your having been my proxy at the Installation of the Knights of the Bath. 1878 L. Villari Life & Times Machiavelli (1898) I. iv. 181 Don Federigo her uncle as her proxy received the nuptial ring.

    b. fig. of things.

1639 Fuller Holy War ii. xiii. (1840) 67 Where the deed could not be present, the desire was a sufficient proxy. a 1683 Oldham Passion Byblis Poet. Wks. (1686) 135, I should myself have gone Nor made my pen a Proxy to my Tongue. 1853 Patmore Poems, Girl of All Periods (1906) 422 'Twixt her shapely lips, a violet Perch'd as a proxy for a cigarette.

    † 4. U.S. local (Rhode Isl. and Conn.). orig. A written vote for the legislative assembly sent by a deputy: hence, loosely applied to the voting-papers or votes generally (cf. quot. 1843 s.v. prox); and hence to the election or day of election. Obs.

1660 (Apr. 11) in Conn. Col. Rec. I. 346 The remote Plantations that use to send Proxies at the Election by their Deputies. 1679 Rhode Isl. Col. Rec. (1861) III. 30 Voted,..that Capt'n Samuell Gorton and Mr. Caleb Carr shall open the proxies. 1755 Douglass Summary (1760) II. 89 (Rhode I.) Formerly..the proxies or voters never exceeded 1300:..and anno 1749, the proxies were only 888. 1809 Kendall Trav. I. v. 32 The written votes or ballots which through a mistake or else abuse of terms, the statutes occasionally call proxies. a 1816 Connecticut Newspr. (Pickering), Republicans of Connecticut, previous to every proxies you have been assaulted on every side... On the approaching proxies we ask you to attend universally. 1816 Pickering Vocab. U.S. 156 This use of the term proxies is not known..in any of the States, except Rhode Island and Connecticut. It is also used sometimes as equivalent to election, or election-day. 1828 in Webster. 1846 in Worcester.

    II. † 5. Eccl. Provision or entertainment for a visiting bishop or his representative; an annual payment by incumbents to the ordinary, in commutation of this; = procuracy 3, procuration 3. Obs.

1534 Hen. VIII in J. Bacon Liber Regis (1786) p. xiv, Except only suche annuell and perpetuall rentts, pensions,..proxis, and fees for officers, as before specyally ys mencyoned. 1661 J. Stephens Procurations 37 The Bishop of Meth..had a Proxie of 15s. 4d payable yearly out of the Commandery of Kells. Ibid. 46 'Twas noted that the same which we call Proxie or Procuracy, is termed by the Canonists Procuratio, because that in every Visitation the persons visited procured necessary provision for the Visitors... But afterwards..Proxies [were] reduced to a certain sum of money payable yearly in the nature of a Pension to the Ordinary, who had power of visitation. 1725 Swift Let. to Sheridan 28 June, The other fifty must go in a curate and visitation charges,—proxies I mean. 1848 in Wharton Law Lex. [but see procuration 3, quot. 1895.]

    III. 6. a. attrib. and Comb.; done by proxy, as proxy help, proxy marriage, proxy prayer, proxy vote; proxy form, a form on which a proxy vote is registered; proxy-man, = sense 3; proxy sitting Spiritualism, a sitting arranged with a medium and attended by one person at the request of another, usu. unknown, person who hopes for news of someone recently dead; proxy war U.S., a war limited in scale or area, instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved; proxy-wedded a., wedded by proxy.

1930 Economist 6 Sept. 453/2 Accordingly they may, and should, use the company's money for the printing and postage of proxy forms.

1696 Growth Deism 16 Whether an Oath of Abjuration laid upon the Jacobites Proxy-men, will put an end to this Corruption.

1900 Everybody's Mag. III. 574/1 It all comes of those proxy marriages.

a 1845 Hood Stag Eyed Lady vi, And drummed with proxy-prayers Mohammed's ear.

1927 N. Walker Bridge iii. iv. 139, I had known about practically nothing that was mentioned in the two previous proxy Leonard sittings. 1933 Proc. Soc. Psychical Res. XLI. cxxx. 139 (title) A consideration of a series of proxy sittings. 1948 Mind LVII. 393 Telepathy is again invoked as the source of supernormal material: a well-worn hypothesis, which fails to cover the data obtained by proxy-sittings, cross-correspondences and so forth. 1962 C. D. Broad Lect. Psychical Res. xv. 352 The essentials of a proxy-sitting are the following. The experimenter..receives in writing from some person, often a complete stranger to him, a few distinctive facts about a certain recently deceased individual... The specified facts are such as would suffice to enable the experimenter to recognize with some probability that the medium was referring to the individual in question.

1716 Rhode Isl. Col. Rec. (1861) IV. 208 This act has no reference to proxy votes, which are to be signed according to former custom.

1843 W. R. Staples Ann. Providence 65.

1955 N.Y. Times 9 Jan. 8e/5 A threat that the United States would instantly retaliate with atomic weapons against the heart of the Communist world if the Commies started another proxy or brush-fire war. 1978 Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev. Sept. 971/2 Proxy wars, as the Athenians discovered in trying to rule their empire indirectly, are extremely costly.

1847 Tennyson Princ. i. 33 She to me Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf At eight years old.

    b. Petrol. and Min. Applied to a mineral that proxies another.

1931 [see proxy v. 2]. 1949 F. H. Hatch et al. Petrol. Igneous Rocks (ed. 10) i. ii. 69 These Al{ppp} atoms which function as silicons are ‘proxy Al's’, and each unit contains two of these. 1965 A. W. G. Whittle in G. J. Williams Econ. Geol. N.Z. x. 150/2 It is probable that an appreciable amount of ‘proxy-nickel’ was leached during the hydrothermal alteration of the pendotites to serpentinites.

    Hence ˈproxyhood, ˈproxyship, the office or function of a proxy or substitute.

1776 in Doran Mann & Manners (1876) II. xiii. 301 My *proxy⁓hood made a pompous article in the Italian Gazettes.

1674 Brevint Saul at Endor xvi. 394 The same Correspondency, and *Proxiship between these Spirits, and their Images.

▪ II. ˈproxy, v.
    [f. the n.]
    1. intr. To act or vote by proxy.

a 1832 Mackintosh cited in Worcester (1846) for Proxy v.

    2. Petrol. and Min. rare. trans. To occur in place of, esp. in a crystal lattice. Also intr., const. for.

1922 A. Johannsen in Jrnl. Geol. XXX. 640 The [German] author says a ‘gabbro tendency’ is shown, and that diallage is proxied by an amphibole of similar chemical composition. 1925 Amer. Jrnl. Sci. CCIX. 313 It is not possible for Br atoms to proxy for Na atoms in halite; they can occupy only places of Cl atoms. 1931 A. Johannsen Descr. Petrogr. Igneous Rocks I. 189 ‘Proxy-minerals’ is a translation of the German words stellvertretende Gemengteile, used by von Leonhard [in 1823] for minerals which take the place of other minerals in a rock; i.e., proxy them but do not replace them in the sense of molecular replacement... Thus if a certain type rock contains biotite, and another is like it in every way except that the dark mineral is hornblende, then in the latter the hornblende proxies biotite, and hornblende is the proxy-mineral. 1946 Amer. Mineralogist XXXI. 423 In tetrahedral positions Al proxies part of the Si. 1963 W. A. Deer et al. Rock-Forming Minerals II. 353 The richterite..has an unusually high content of titanium some of which may proxy for silicon in tetrahedral positions.

    Hence ˈproxying vbl. n.

1946 Amer. Mineralogist XXXI. 424 Other variables in the chemical composition [of the montmorillonite group of minerals] are..the proxying of OH by F as in the micas.

Oxford English Dictionary