[f. FINANCE sb.1]
† 1. a. trans. To put to ransom. b. intr. To pay ransom. Obs.
1478. Plumpton Corr., p. lxii. Some of them labored and treated by them to make them fynance, as they had bene the Kings enemies.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VII. 362. [They] caryed away with theym many of the cytezeyns, beynge ryche, and fynauncyd theym at great summes of money.
2. trans. To furnish with finances or money; to find capital for.
1866. Times, 2 Feb., 7/5. To finance a business … a new verb … is to supply it with capital to make a daring speculation.
1883. F. P. Henry, in Law Times, 28 July, 247/2. It was alleged that Manning … had financed or backed Hannam, a cattle dealer, lending him money to trade with.
3. intr. To conduct or engage in financial operations, to manage monetary affairs; to provide oneself with capital.
1827. [see next].
1885. Daily News, 12 Feb., 5/7. He financed, in the most successful manner, with paper money.
Hence Financing vbl. sb.; also attrib.
1827. Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 12. They [our ancestors] had no counting-houses, no ledgers, no commerce, no Christmas bills, no letter-writing, no printing, no engraving, no bending over the desk, no ‘wasting of the midnight oil’ and the brain together, no financing, not a hundredth part of the relationships in society, nor of the cares that we have, who ‘wassail’ as they did, and wonder we are not so strong as they were.
1866. Morn. Star, 17 March. The old board allowed this man to do what was sometimes called financing.
1881. Carlyle, in Froude, Life in Lond., II. xxiv. 481. Those millions you have heaped together with your financing work.
