sinking fund

Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

1.An aggregation or deposit of resources from which supplies are or may be drawn for carrying on any work, or for maintaining existence. [1913 Webster]

2.A stock or capital; a sum of money appropriated as the foundation of some commercial or other operation undertaken with a view to profit; that reserve by means of which expenses and credit are supported; as, the fund of a bank, commercial house, manufacturing corporation, etc. [1913 Webster]

3.pl. The stock of a national debt; public securities; evidences (stocks or bonds) of money lent to government, for which interest is paid at prescribed intervals; -- called also public funds. [1913 Webster]

4.An invested sum, whose income is devoted to a specific object; as, the fund of an ecclesiastical society; a fund for the maintenance of lectures or poor students; also, money systematically collected to meet the expenses of some permanent object. [1913 Webster]

5.A store laid up, from which one may draw at pleasure; a supply; a full provision of resources; as, a fund of wisdom or good sense. [1913 Webster]

An inexhaustible fund of stories.— Macaulay.[1913 Webster]

Sinking fund, the aggregate of sums of money set apart and invested, usually at fixed intervals, for the extinguishment of the debt of a government, or of a corporation, by the accumulation of interest. [1913 Webster]

Sinking fund. See under Fund.

Sinking head (Founding), a riser from which the mold is fed as the casting shrinks. See Riser, n., 4.

Sinking pump, a pump which can be lowered in a well or a mine shaft as the level of the water sinks. [1913 Webster]