tranchen.¹

c1500 Melusine (1895) xi. 43 The said fontayne, where as grett tranchis [p. 50 trenchis] or keruyng was made within the harde roche.

1893 P. Fitzgerald in Month July 337 Huge baskets..in which were huge tranches of bread.

1930 Economist 10 May (Suppl.) 10/1 The first business of the bank will be the arrangement of a loan to raise $300 million... The first tranche of the combined loan is expected to be offered about the end of May.

1953 Economist 15 Aug. 470/2 The gas stock (and a few other tranches, too) remains to be sold.

1962 C. A. R. Crosland Conservative Enemy v. 83 It is true that, as in Soviet Russia, or any industrial society, the top managerial executives belong to the highest social tranche in terms both of income and prestige.

1963 Ann. Reg. 1962 477 On 9 May a further tranche, amounting to £300 million, of 5 per cent Treasury Stock 1986–89 was issued at £84½ per cent.

1964 S. Brittan Treasury under Tories iv. 123 The ‘gold tranche’ represents the portion of British credit facilities automatically available without conditions.

1966 Listener 11 Aug. 206/1 It laid down political conditions which Egypt would have to fulfil in order to get the second tranche of the loan.

1973 Times 19 Dec. 17/6 To meet the load growth in the meantime, the board says, a ‘large tranche of reliable nuclear plant’ is required.

1974 Times 6 Mar. 15/2 Names have rarely been published except in the cases of the biggest tranches of aid [sc. Government aid to private industry].

1977 Observer 3 Apr. 10/2 His second tranche of income-tax cuts.

1978 ‘L. Black’ Foursome v. 40 Later, the next tranche of old houses would be knocked down so that the Brickyard Lane estate could be doubled in size.

1980 Times 18 Jan. 19/4 Why not approach the institutional or wholesale money market for funds in large tranches rather than continue with the costly exercise of collecting money from a multitude of smaller savers?

1934 in Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang.

1957 N. Frye Anat. Crit. 285 This idolatrous form of mimesis is rare, but the thin line of its tradition can be traced from Classical mime writers like Herodas to their tranche-de-vie descendants in recent times.

1958 Spectator 11 July 52/1 This tranche de vie came into my mind while I was talking.

1959 Times 1 Sept. 11/7 The static, informal tranches-de-vie landscapes of his Antwerp period.

1970 New Yorker 12 Dec. 193/1 It is the hand-held camera..that is designed to deal with the matter of obtaining tranches de vie.