Definition of "indent"

indent

/ˈɪndɛnt/

noun
plural indents
1. A cut or notch in the margin of anything, or a recess like a notch.
2. A stamp; an impression.
3. A certificate, or intended certificate, issued by the government of the United States at the close of the Revolution, for the principal or interest of the public debt.
4. A requisition or order for supplies, sent to the commissariat of an army.
verb
third-person singular simple present indents, present participle indenting, simple past and past participle indented
1. (transitive) To notch; to jag; to cut into points like a row of teeth
2. (intransitive) To be cut, notched, or dented.
3. To dent; to stamp or to press in; to impress
4. (historical) To cut the two halves of a document in duplicate, using a jagged or wavy line so that each party could demonstrate that their copy was part of the original whole.
5. (intransitive, reflexive, obsolete) To enter into a binding agreement by means of such documents; to formally commit (to doing something); to contract.
  Quotations
  The Polanders indented with Henry, Duke of Anjou, their new-chosen king, to bring with him an hundred families of artificers into Poland.
  1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps
  And is this now the Person who is to oblige his Maker? to indent and drive bargains with the Almighty?
  1698, Robert South, Twelve Sermons upon Several Subjects and Occasions‎, London: Thomas Bennet, page 28
  […] he accidentally met with the commander of a trading vessel bound to Barbadoes, and being actuated by an adventurous spirit, [he] bargained for a passage by indenting himself to serve a planter for four years after his arrival in that island.
  1803, John Browne Cutting, “A Succinct History of Jamaica” in Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, pp. xlii-xliii
6. (transitive, obsolete) To engage (someone), originally by means of indented contracts.
7. (typography) To begin (a line or lines) at a greater or lesser distance from the margin. See indentation, and indention. Normal indent pushes in a line or paragraph. "Hanging indent" pulls the line out into the margin.
8. (obsolete, intransitive) To crook or turn; to wind in and out; to zigzag.
  Quotations
  Seeing Orlando, it vnlink'd it selfe,And with indented glides, did slip away
  c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene iii]
9. (military, India, dated) To make an order upon; to draw upon, as for military stores.
  Quotations
  What is the rule observed in India in indenting upon England for military stores ?
  1832 May 23, John Byng examining Jasper Nicolls in the House of Commons

Definition of "indent"

indent

noun

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations