Definition of "affiance" []

• To bind in a pledge of marriage; betroth. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "For example, an apprentice's contract from the Guild of English Merchant Tailors for 1451 states that the apprentice is "not to commit fornication in or out of his master's house, nor make any contract of matrimony nor affiance himself without his master's permission.""
• "Miss Margland received Camilla with a civility which, since her positive and public affiance to Edgar, she thought necessary to the mistress of Beech Park; but she looked upon Dr. Marchmont, whom she concluded to have been her advocate, with a cold illwill, which, for Mr. Westwyn, she seasoned still more strongly by a portion of contemptuous haughtiness; from a ready disposition to believe every stranger, not formally announced, beneath her notice."
• "I am not to be deceived again, began to dawn: which I presume to flatter myself with being a happy omen for me, as if God Almighty would shew your poor sinful daughter, how well I did to put my affiance in his goodness, and not to throw away myself, because my ruin seemed inevitable, to my short-sighted apprehension."