1. Money paid in advance to soldiers, workmen, etc., to supply their needs until the regular pay-day. (Cf. SUBSIST sb., SUB sb. 7.)
1687. Royal Order, 27 Nov., in Lond. Gaz., No. 2299/1. We do hereby … Require every … Officer … to pay … unto each Private Soldier … Three Shillings per Week,… as Subsistence-Money.
1743. Bulkeley & Cummins, Voy. S. Seas, 192. We should have a convenient House, with Firing, and eight Vintens a Man per Day Subsistence-Money.
1798. Hutton, Course Math., I. 33, note. Subsistence Money, is the money paid to the soldiers weekly…. It is likewise the money advanced to officers till their accounts are made up.
1892. Labour Comm., Gloss. No. 9 s.v. Money, Subsistence money, a certain proportion of wages, equal to what one day’s wages would be under the ordinary rate, i. e., 6d. per hour, paid every day under the plus system.
2. An allowance for maintenance granted under special circumstances (see quots.).
1720. Overseers’ Acc. Holy Cross, Canterbury (MS.), Paid Mrs. Yeats A Quarters subsistance Mony.
1847. C. G. Addison, Law of Contracts, I. i. (1883), 10. A parent … cannot be made liable,… unless … the child has become chargeable upon the parish, and the parish authorities sue for subsistence money in the mode provided by the poor laws.
1861. Geikie, Forbes, xiv. 518. The Professors … had to take their students to the country, live in expensive hotels, and received no subsistence money to defray their additional expenditure.
1876. Voyle & Stevenson, Milit. Dict., Subsistence Money, an allowance granted for the subsistence of soldiers who, whilst in imprisonment in cells, or confinement in the guard-room, forfeit their daily pay.
