SUBSIDY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Subsidy

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/sˈəbsɪdi/ Listen

noun

Subsidy n. (pl. subsidies)

Support; aid; cooperation; esp., extraordinary aid in money rendered to the sovereign or to a friendly power. "They advised the king to send speedy aids, and with much alacrity granted a great rate of subsidy." Note: Subsidies were taxes, not immediately on on property, but on persons in respect of their reputed estates, after the nominal rate of 4s. the pound for lands, and 2s. 8d. for goods.

Specifically: A sum of money paid by one sovereign or nation to another to purchase the cooperation or the neutrality of such sovereign or nation in war.

A grant from the government, from a municipal corporation, or the like, to a private person or company to assist the establishment or support of an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public; a subvention; as, a subsidy to the owners of a line of ocean steamships.

Synonyms: Tribute; grant. Subsidy, Tribute. A subsidy is voluntary; a tribute is exacted.

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Etymology of 'Subsidy'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Subsidy" Quotes from Famous Books

... a Subsidy Roll of 25 Edward I., in an enumeration of property in the parish of Skirbeck, near Boston, Lincolnshire, upon which a ninth was granted to the king, I find the following articles and their ...

— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various

... State Convention had been smothered in the interests of the party. He reappeared among men with as much assurance as ever. He even approached Harlan Thornton to solicit his support of one bill. It was a measure to grant State subsidy, through exemption of taxation, to assist a railroad to extend its lines into the ...

— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... early as A.D. 464-5, when the famine should have been at its height, Perozes had entered upon a great war and was hotly engaged in it, his ambassadors at the same time being sent to the Greek court, not to ask supplies of food, but to request a subsidy on account of his military operations. The enemy which had provoked his hostility was the powerful nation of the Ephthalites, by whose aid he had so recently obtained the Persian crown. According to a contemporary Greek authority, more worthy of trust than most writers of his age and nation, the ...

— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... concerned, rather than subsidy which, while doubtless warrantable to secure the public good, affords less precise basis of legislation ...

— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen

... Privy-Council in the same, and the queen's learned counsel for the time being, at his or their discretion from time to time, such portion and quantity of wines, to be free and discharged of and from the said customs and subsidy, as he shall think to be mete and competent for every of them, after their degrees and ...

— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers

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