Assurance

• I. The action of assuring.* Of making certain.

1. A promise or engagement making a thing certain; a formal engagement, pledge, or guarantee.

b. esp. An engagement guaranteeing peace and safety; terms of peace. Obs. exc. Hist.

2. A marriage engagement, betrothal. Obs.

3. A positive declaration intended to give confidence. Of making secure.

4. Law. The securing of a title to property; the conveyance of lands or tenements by deed; a legal evidence of the conveyance of property.killsI5. The action of insuring or securing the value of property in the event of its being lost, or of securing the payment of a specified sum in the event of a person's death; insurance. Technically, the present usage is to differentiate life-assurance, and fire- and marine-insurance; though, as will be seen from the quotations, assurance was the original term in reference to marine risks.

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• II. The state of being sure or assured.

6. Objective certainty; = ASSUREDNESS 1. Obs.

7. Security.

8. Subjective certainty; a being certain as to a fact, certitude; confidence, trust.

b. in Theol. (See quote)

1651 C. CARTWRIGHT Cert. Relig. I. 251 The Doctrine of Protestants concerning assurance of salvation..viz. that a man may have this assurance.

1852 SIR W. HAMILTON Disc. (1853) 508 Assurance, Personal Assurance, Special Faith, (the feeling of certainty that God is propitious to me,that my sins are forgiven).

9. Self-confidence, self-reliance; confidence of manner, steadiness, intrepidity.

10. In a bad sense: Hardihood, audacity, presumption, impudence.