auxiliary, a. and n.
(ɔːgˈzɪlɪərɪ)
[ad. L. auxiliārius, f. auxili-um help: see -ary1.]
A. adj. Const. to.
1. a. Helpful, assistant, affording aid, rendering assistance, giving support or succour.
| 1605 Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. viii. §2 Mixed [mathematics] hath for subject some..parts of natural philosophy, and considereth quantity determined, as it is auxiliary and incident unto them. 1686 Plot Staffordsh. 11 Calling upon the auxiliary name of Jesus to help her well home. 1857 Buckle Civilis. ii. 108 In a well-balanced mind, the imagination and the understanding..are auxiliary to each other. |
esp. b. in warfare. See B. 2. Also in the names of various special ancillary services as: Auxiliary Air Force (formed 1917), Auxiliary Fire Service (formed 1937, absorbed in National Fire Service 1941), Auxiliary Territorial Service (formed 1938, replaced by the Women's Royal Army Corps in 1949) (see also S., separate entry).
| 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 404 To send unto him auxiliarie souldiers. 1862 Merivale Rom. Emp. (1865) VII. lvi. 109 Two auxiliary cohorts were cut to pieces. 1917 Act 7 & 8 Geo. V, c. 51 §6 It shall be lawful for His Majesty to raise and maintain an Air Force Reserve and an Auxiliary Air Force. 1925 Times 19 Feb. 17/3 The City of London Auxiliary Air Force Squadron..one of the first to be formed under the scheme for home defence against air attack. 1937 Mem. on Emerg. Fire Brigade Organ. (Home Office) 11 The Auxiliary Fire Service is one which should make a considerable appeal to many men. 1938 Army Orders Sept. 9 Our will and pleasure is that there shall be formed an organization to be designated the Auxiliary Territorial Service; Our further will and pleasure is that women may be enrolled in this Service. 1939 War Illustr. 23 Sept. p. iii/1 W.A.T.S. (Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service.) Ibid. 14 Oct. 151 (caption) Dame Helen Gwynne Vaughan, Director of the Auxiliary Territorial Service. 1940 Ann. Reg. 1939 86 The fighter and general reconnaissance squadrons of the Auxiliary Air Force had been called up. 1940 Hutchinson's Pict. Hist. War 2 Oct.–26 Nov. 168 Men of the Auxiliary Fire Service have been fully tested by raid conditions. |
c. in Grammar: see B. 3. Formerly applied to any formative or subordinate elements of language, e.g. prefixes, prepositions; cf. auxiliar n.
| 1677 Plot Oxfordsh. 282 Expressing the auxiliary Particles of the English language, by distinct points and places about the radical or integral words. 1750 Harris Hermes (1841) 178. 1762 Sterne Tr. Shandy V. xliii. 146 The verbs auxiliary..are, am, was, have, had, do, did, make, etc. 1834 Southey Doctor 1 Our auxiliary verbs give us a power which the ancients, with all their varieties of mood, and inflections of tense, never could attain. |
2. a. Subsidiary to the ordinary, additional. auxiliary language, a language, esp. one invented for the purpose (e.g. Esperanto), used as a means of communication by speakers from two different language groups; an artificial language (see artificial a. 5).
| a 1687 Petty Pol. Arith. ii. (1691) 49 Auxiliary Seamen, are such as have another Trade besides, wherewith to maintain themselves, when they are not employed at Sea. 1869 E. J. Reed Ship-build. ii. 43 To employ side-keels, which are..known as ‘drift-keels,’ ‘auxiliary keels,’ ‘bilge-keels.’ 1877 W. Thomson Voy. Challenger II. i. 14 There is an auxiliary eye on each of the maxillæ. 1905 Westm. Gaz. 15 Aug., Esperanto aims at becoming a generally accepted ‘auxiliary language’. 1939 Nature 29 Apr. 717/1 The value of an auxiliary language as an agency for world peace. |
b. Music. (See quot.)
| 1864 Webster, Auxiliary scales, the six keys or scales, consisting of any key major, with its relative minor, and the relative keys of each. 1873 Banister Music §225–6 Auxiliary notes are notes one degree above or below essential or unessential notes, preceding such notes, either with or before the accompanying harmony..The Appoggiatura, Acciaccatura, etc., are examples of such notes. |
B. n.
1. One who renders help or gives assistance; a helper, assistant, confederate, ally; also, that which gives help, a source or means of assistance.
| 1656 Cowley Davideis iv. Wks. 1710 II. 439 He Rains and Winds for Auxiliaries brought. 1660 Jer. Taylor Duct. Dubit. i. ii. Wks. IX. 79 Suspected to take in auxiliaries from the spirits of darkness. 1769 Robertson Chas. V, V. ii. 250 The appearance of such a vigorous auxiliary..was at first matter of great joy to Luther. 1862 Marsh Eng. Lang. iv. 67 A knowledge of certain other languages is a highly useful auxiliary in the study of our own. |
2. Mil. (usually in pl.) Foreign or allied troops in the service of a nation at war.
| 1601 R. Johnson Kingd. & Commw. 193 They maintaine three sorts of soldiers..the third are Auxiliaries, which serue for pay. 1692 Dryden St. Euremont's Ess. 23 When Xantippus, a Lacedæmonian, arrived with a Body of Auxiliaries. 1862 Merivale Hist. Rom. Emp. (1865) VII. lvi. 109 A Gaul and a Roman happened to challenge one another to wrestle; the legionary fell, the auxiliary mocked him. |
3. Gram. A verb used to form the tenses, moods, voices, etc. of other verbs.
They include auxiliaries of periphrasis, which assist in expressing the interrogative, negative, and emphatic forms of speech, viz. do (did); auxiliaries of tense, have, be, shall, will; of mood, may, should, would; of voice, be; of predication (i.e. vbs. of incomplete predication which require a verbal complement), can, must, ought, need, also shall, will, may, when not auxiliaries of tense or mood.
| 1762 Sterne Tr. Shandy V. xlii. 145 The use of the Auxiliaries. 1835 Penny Cycl. III. 160/1 After the verb to be, the next in importance among the auxiliaries is the verb to have. 1878 Morris & Bowen Eng. Gram. Exerc. Prim. 70 In deciding whether a verb is an auxiliary or not, it is necessary to decide whether it marks the time or the manner of action of another verb, or whether it makes the subject, or thing spoken of, the doer or sufferer of the action. If it does none of these things, then it is no auxiliary. |
4. Math. A quantity introduced for the purpose of simplifying or facilitating some operation, as in equations or trigonometrical formulæ.