assurance

See also: Assurance

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

assurance

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “assurance”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Alternative forms

assuraunce (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English assuraunce, from Old French asseürance, from asseürer; as if assure +‎ -ance.

Pronunciation

(General American) IPA^(key): /əˈʃʊɹəns/, /əˈʃɝəns/
(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈʃʊəɹəns/, /əˈʃɔːɹəns/
Rhymes: -ʊəɹəns
Hyphenation: as‧sur‧ance
Audio (US) (file)

Noun

assurance (countable and uncountable, plural assurances)

The act of assuring; a declaration tending to inspire full confidence; something designed to give confidence.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Acts 17:31:
  Whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
- 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 9, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
  Assurances of support came pouring in daily.
The state of being assured; total confidence or trust; a lack of doubt; certainty.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Hebrews 10:22:
  Let us draw with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
Firmness of mind; undoubting steadiness; intrepidity; courage; confidence; self-reliance.
- 1603, Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes, , London: Adam Islip, →OCLC:
  the affairs of the Tarkish camp together with assurance
- 1693, [John Locke], “§70”, in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, London: A and J Churchill, , →OCLC:
  Conversation, when they come into the world, soon gives them a becoming assurance
- 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
  This new-comer was a man who in any company would have seemed striking. […] His air, of self-confident assurance, seemed that of a man well used to having his own way.
Excessive boldness; impudence; audacity
his assurance is intolerable
- 1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume I, chapter 7:
  You confined to the society of the illiterate and vulgar all your life! I wonder how the young man could have the assurance to ask it. He must have a pretty good opinion of himself.
(obsolete) Betrothal; affiance.
(insurance) Insurance; a contract for the payment of a sum on occasion of a certain event, as loss or death. Assurance is used in relation to life contingencies, and insurance in relation to other contingencies. It is called temporary assurance, in the time within which the contingent event must happen is limited.
(law) Any written or other legal evidence of the conveyance of property; a conveyance; a deed.
- 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC:
  the legal evidences of the conveyance of property are called the common assurances of the kingdom.
(theology) Subjective certainty of one's salvation.