[ad. L. actuāri-us an amanuensis, a keeper of accounts, f. actu-s act; see -ARY.]
1. A registrar or clerk, a notary; an officer appointed to write down the acts or proceedings of a court. Still used in the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury.
1553. Foxe, A. & M., in Cobbett’s St. Trials, I. 628. Requiring also the copies, as well of the articles as of his protestation, of the Actuaries.
1658. Bramhall, Consecr. Bishops, iii. 30. The same publick Notary who was Principall Actuary both at Cardinall Poles Consecration and Arch-Bishop Parkers.
1667. Chamberlayne, St. Grt. Brit., I. II. viii. (1743), 73. To this Court [of Arches] belongeth an Actuary, a Register, and a Beadle. The office of the Actuary is to attend the court, set down the judges decrees.
1717. Blount, Law Dict., Actuary (actuarius) is the Scribe that registers the Acts and Constitutions of the Convocation.
1879. Whitaker’s Alman., 155. Conv. of Prov. of Cant. (Officers) Vicar-General, Registrar, Actuary.
† 2. The managing secretary or accountant of a public company. Obs.
1804. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., II. 238. The managers and actuaries of our public companies.
3. An official in an insurance office, whose duty it is to compile statistical tables of mortality, and estimate therefrom the necessary rates of premium, etc.; or one whose profession it is to solve for Insurance Companies or the public, all monetary questions that involve a consideration of the separate or combined effect of Interest and Probability, in connection with the duration of human life, the average proportion of losses due to fire or other accidents, etc.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 283. An actuary of eminent skill, subjected the ancient parochial registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials, to all the tests which the modern improvements in statistical science enabled him to apply.
1859. Q. Rev., No. 211, 75. Many actuaries acknowledge the soundness of that basis for life assurance and annuity calculations.
