indent

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.

present singular third person indents · participle present indenting · participle past indented · past indented

1. transitiveTo notch; to jag; to cut into points like a row of teeth

   to indent the edge of paper

2. intransitiveTo be cut, notched, or dented.
3. To dent; to stamp or to press in; to impress

   to indent wax with a stamp

   1 more example

   indent a smooth surface with a hammer

4. historicalTo 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. intransitiveobsoletereflexiveTo enter into a binding agreement by means of such documents; to formally commit (to doing something); to contract.

   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

   2 more examples

   The Polanders indented with Henry, Duke of Anjou, their new-chosen king, to bring with him an hundred families of artificers into Poland.

   1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York: New York Review Books, published 2001, →ISBN, page 91

   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, […] 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.

6. obsoletetransitiveTo engage (someone), originally by means of indented contracts.

   to indent a young man to a shoemaker; to indent a servant

7. mediaTo 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.

   to indent the first line of a paragraph one em

   1 more example

   to indent the second paragraph two ems more than the first

8. intransitiveobsoleteTo crook or turn; to wind in and out; to zigzag.

   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, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]

9. IndiaSingaporedated elsewheregovernmentTo make an order upon; to draw upon, as for military stores.

   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