a. [ad. L. fīdūciāl-is, f. fīdūcia trust, confidence: see -AL.]
1. Theol. Of or pertaining to, or of the nature of, trust or reliance.
1624. F. White, Repl. Fisher, 164. But Abraham, Iob, S. Paul, and other iust persons (commended in holy Scriptures) had such a iustifying Faith, as was both an intellectuall and fiduciall assent to diuine Verities and Promises.
1656. H. More, Enthus. Tri., 43. Every thing has Sense, Imagination, and a fiducial Knowledge of God in it, Metals, Meteors and Plants not excepted.
a. 1703. Burkitt, On N. T., John xv. 5. Abide in me not only by an outward and visible Profession, but by a real and fiducial Adherence, and I will abide in you by the influences and Operations of my holy Spirit.
a. 1711. Ken, Divine Love, Wks. (1838), 312. Teach us to live without covetous anxiety for to-morrow, with a fiducial dependence on Thy fatherly goodness, and to be content and thankful for the present portion Thy love has indulged us.
1870. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. xxxi. 3, II. 63. The words before us appear to embrace and fasten upon the Lord with a fiducial grip which is not to be relaxed.
2. humorous nonce-use. Willing to trust.
1847. L. Hunt, Men, Women, & B., I. ix. 169. Taverns not exactly what I took ’em for—not hospitable—not fiducial—don’t trust.
† 3. Trusted, trusty. Obs.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, II. I. IV. iii.
| Fountain of forms, and prop fiduciall | |
| Of all those lives and beings cleeped Naturall. |
1730–6. in Bailey (folio).
4. In Surveying, Astronomy, etc. Of a line, point, etc.: Assumed as a fixed basis of comparison.
1571. Digges, Pantom. (1591), 30. Note the degrees cut by the line fiduciall.
1644. Nye, Gunnery (1670), 44. The Line Fiduciall, because from this line proceeds the beginning of the degrees in the Circle.
1828. Hutton, Course Math., II. 55. These sights and one edge of the index are in the same plane, and that is called the fiducial edge of the index.
1873. Maxwell, in Life, xiv. (1882), 435. We need some fiducial point or standard of reference.
5. = FIDUCIARY.
1832. in Webster quoting Spelman.
Hence Fiducially adv., in a fiducial manner.
1647. T. Hill, Best & Worst of Paul (1648), 22. God hath given thee a sweet perswasion of soul to rest fiducially.
1654. T. Warren, Unbelievers, 204. Fiducially trusting upon Christ.
a. 1716. South, Serm., Wks. 1737, VI. 472. It is the Spirit of God alone that proposes to the soul the grounds of hope, and lays before it the object of hope, and then, by an immediate, almighty power, enables the soul fiducially to close with and rest upon that object, upon those grounds.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Fiducially, honestly, trustily.
1847. in Craig.
