ppl. a. [f. VEST v. + -ED.]
1. Clothed, robed, dressed, spec. in ecclesiastical vestments. Also fig.
1671. Milton, P. R., I. 257. Just Simeon and Prophetic Anna … spake Before the Altar and the vested Priest.
1769. Goldsm., Des. Vill., 360. The cooling brook, the grassy vested green.
1841. Chalmers, in Hanna, Mem. (1852), IV. 256. Why do I not go forth as a forgiven and vested creature.
1842. Wordsw., Eccles. Sonn., III. xxvi. The Vested Priest before the Altar stands.
b. Her. (See quot.)
c. 1828. Berry, Encycl. Her., I. Gloss., Vested, habited, or clothed, as a cubit arm, &c. vested az. or the like.
2. Established, secured or settled in the hands of, or definitely assigned to, a certain possessor.
1766. Blackstone, Comm., II. 168. Vested remainders … are where the estate is invariably fixed, to remain to a determinate person, after the particular estate is spent. Ibid., 513. A legacy to one, to be paid when he attains the age of twenty-one years, is a vested legacy.
1818. Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), VI. 185. He held it to be a vested estate in fee in the son.
1832. Lewis, Use & Ab. Pol. Terms, iii. 25. In its legal sense, vested is opposed to contingent.
1845. Williams, Real Prop., 241. The alienation of an executory interest, before its becoming an actually vested estate.
1868. E. Edwards, Ralegh, I. Introd. p. xlv. After … months of struggle with the vested privileges of record-keepers.
b. esp. with right or interest. Also fig.
(a) a. 1797. I. W. Andrews, Man. Constit., 211 (Thornton). Violative of a vested legal right.
1832. Austin, Jurispr., App. p. xxxiv. Vested rights essentially differ … from rights which are contingent.
1848. Mill, Pol. Econ., I. ix. § 3 (1876), 89. The vested right which Parliament has allowed to be acquired by the existing companies.
1858. J. Martineau, Stud. Chr., 285. Let its vested right, of paying out the truth, be flung into the free air of history.
1876. Digby, Real Prop., v. § 3. 233. It is not such a right as the law regards as vested, that is, as completely created.
(b) 1818. Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), V. 481. The limitation … gave him an immediate vested interest in the surplus of the estate.
1842. Abdy, Water Cure (1843), 154. Finding that new truths have not as many vested interests to recommend them as old fallacies.
1859. Mill, Liberty, iv. (1865), 53/1. The doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested interest in each other’s moral, intellectual, and even physical perfection.
1889. W. Donisthorpe, Individualism, iv. 122. Vested interests may perhaps be defined as rights based not upon contract but upon custom.
3. Invested.
1863. P. Barry, Dockyard Econ., 20. The returns for vested capital and the comfort of the working classes both [being] considered.
