v. [f. SUBSIDY + -IZE.]
1. trans. a. To make a payment for the purpose of securing the services of (mercenary or alien troops).
1795. Seward, Anecd. (1796), III. 382. Lord Chatham was obliged to call in to its aid the mercenary troops of other Nations: these … he subsidised with a liberal … hand.
1803. Wellington, in Gurw., Desp. (1835), II. 223. The latter has agreed to subsidize one company of artillery and two battalions of native infantry.
1838. Prescott, Ferd. & Is., II. xiv. He obtained a small supply of men from his Italian allies, and subsidized a corps of 8000 Swiss.
1878. Lecky, Eng. in 18th Cent., I. iii. 350. An army of about 44000 Swedes, Danes, and Hessians was subsidised.
b. To furnish (a country, nation, princes) with a subsidy for the purpose of securing their assistance or their neutrality in war.
a. 1792. H. Walpole, Mem. Reign Geo. III. (1845), I. vii. 105. Little Princes are subsidized, when not worthy of reciprocation.
1805. Spirit Publ. Jrnls., IX. 1. I have sought relief in hearing the censure of Administration for subsidizing the Continent.
1860. L. Harcourt, Diaries G. Rose, I. 66. To subsidize one power against another.
2. transf. a. To secure the services of by payment or bribery.
1815. W. H. Ireland, Scribbleomania, 26, note. Deigning to subsidize a venal pen in order to throw a gloss over the flagrant dereliction.
1871. Daily News, 6 Nov. It was … to abstain … from subsidising the press.
1899. R. Kipling, Stalky & Co., 66. The three … stood to attention … in full view of all the visitors, to whom fags, subsidised for that end, pointed them out as victims of Prout’s tyranny.
fig. 1862. F. Hall, Hindu Philos. Syst., 122. In its operations, it [sc. the soul] subsidizes all the sense-organs.
b. To furnish funds for (a scheme or course of action). rare.
1858. Froude, Hist. Eng., III. xvi. 431. Like so many of the northern abbots, he might have been hoarding a fund to subsidize insurrection.
c. To support by grants of money: now esp. of the government or some central authority contributing to the upkeep of an institution, etc.
1828. Southey, in Q. Rev., XXXVIII. 592. For the British Government to pay the Roman Catholic clergy would be to subsidize the Court of Rome against itself.
1871. Pall Mall Gaz., 23 Aug., 10. M. Thiers’ unhappy stroke of financial ingenuity actually subsidizes the detested Teuton.
1876. J. Grant, Burgh Sch. Scot., II. iii. 129. In several places, we find the councils actually subsidizing adventure schools.
1885. Manch. Exam., 17 Feb., 5/2. The schools … have been subsidised by grants from the county magistrates.
1911. War Dept. Provis. Subsidy Scheme, 1. The full terms under which the War Department will subsidize vehicles.
Hence Subsidized, Subsidizing vbl. sb. and ppl. a.; Subsidization, Subsidizer.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit. (1907), I. 142. The abandonment of the subsidizing policy, so far at least as neither to goad or bribe the continental courts into war.
1870. W. R. Greg, Pol. Probl., 29. The encouragers and subsidisers of all other states through their crises of despondency and destitution.
1872. Daily News, 25 March, 5/2. Now, every country has its subsidized lines of steamers, which carry mails to all parts of the world.
1881. Athenæum, 27 Aug., 274/1. The subsidizing of political benefit societies by well-to-do Conservatives.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 27 May, 5/2. He … put an extinguisher upon all hopes of a conference with the subsidizing nations, or the introduction of a countervailing tariff.
1907. Daily Chron., 1 Jan., 5/5. The statement as to Mr. Schiff’s subsidisation of the alleged Galveston scheme is inaccurate.
1908. Athenæum, 31 Oct., 545/3. It was about to cease as a subsidized publication of the French Government.
