[a. F. urgence (1572), or f. URGENT a.: see -ENCE.]
1. Earnest or pressing solicitation; importunity; = URGENCY 2.
c. 1592. Marlowe, Jew of Malta, Prol. This all that he intends, (And that too, at the vrgence of some friends).
1624. Heywood, Gunaik., II. 100. His urgence overcame the silence of the Oracle. Ibid. (1634), Maidenh. well lost, I. C 2. At my vrgence He promis’t you a parley.
1879. Howells, L. Aroostook, 166. She tried to remember at his urgence, something of her childhood. Ibid., 219. ‘Oh I give you the right,’ he cried with passionate urgence.
1893. F. Adams, Egypt, 255. At the united urgence of France and England…, [he] resigned.
2. Urgent need; pressing necessity or importance; = URGENCY 1.
c. 1605. Bodley, in Trecentale Bodleianum (1913), 44. The Keeper may sometimes, vpon Vrgence of buisnesse,… desire a dispensation for his personal absence from his charge.
1610. Heywood, Gold. Age, IV. i. Urgence calls me hence To an enforced absence.
1639. Davenport, New Trick, I. i. His businesse craves dispatch, And is of serious urgence.
3. Quickness, expedition, haste.
1612. J. Cotta, Dang. Pract. Physic, I. viii. 60. Drunkennesse, whose ordinarily knowne effects are … in some imaginations … quicke and readie, in some with as apparent vrgence, yet senselesse.
1868. Geo. Eliot, Sp. Gipsy, 72. Late despatches sent With urgence by the Count of Bavien.
1869. Blackmore, Lorna D., x. We found good reason for the urgence and melancholy of the duck-birds.
4. Impelling force; = URGENCY 5.
1874. S. Lanier, Poems, Corn, 13. Expirations strong Throb from young hickories … With stress and urgence bold of prisoned spring.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., V. xxxvi. A shrinking finally overcome by the urgence of poverty.
1876. Dowden, Poems, 2. The lapsing waters tell The urgence uncontrollable Which makes the trouble of their breast.
