Re·serve, n.
1. The act of reserving, or keeping back; reservation.
However any one may concur in the general scheme, it is still with certain reserves and deviations. --Addison.
2. That which is reserved, or kept back, as for future use.
The virgins, besides the oil in their lamps, carried likewise a reserve in some other vessel for a continual supply. --Tillotson.
3. That which is excepted; exception.
Each has some darling lust, which pleads for a reserve. --Rogers.
4. Restraint of freedom in words or actions; backwardness; caution in personal behavior.
My soul, surprised, and from her sex disjoined,
Left all reserve, and all the sex, behind. --Prior.
The clergyman's shy and sensitive reserve had balked this scheme. --Hawthorne.
5. A tract of land reserved, or set apart, for a particular purpose; as, the Connecticut Reserve in Ohio, originally set apart for the school fund of Connecticut; the Clergy Reserves in Canada, for the support of the clergy.
6. Mil. (a) A body of troops in the rear of an army drawn up for battle, reserved to support the other lines as occasion may require; a force or body of troops kept for an exigency. (b) troops trained but released from active service, retained as a formal part of the military force, and liable to be recalled to active service in cases of national need (see Army organization, above).
7. Banking Funds kept on hand to meet liabilities.
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the reserve to be absorbed from the initial reserve in any year in payment of losses is sometimes called the insurance reserve, and the terminal reserve is then called the investment reserve.
9. In exhibitions, a distinction which indicates that the recipient will get a prize if another should be disqualified.
10. Calico Printing A resist.
11. A preparation used on an object being electroplated to fix the limits of the deposit.
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