• IPA: /əˈfaɪəns/

affiance (affiances, present participle affiancing; past and past participle affianced)

1. (transitive) To be betrothed to; to promise to marry.
   • 1935 April, William Faulkner, “Skirmish at Sartoris”, in The Unvanquished, New York, N.Y.: Random House, published 1938, OCLC 1080149991 ↗; republished in The Unvanquished: The Corrected Text, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, October 1991, →ISBN, section 1, page 189 ↗:

     [S]he had expected the worst ever since Drusilla had deliberately tried to unsex herself by refusing to feel any natural grief at the death in battle not only of her affianced husband but of her own father [...]

• Russian: обруча́ться

affiance (plural affiances)

1. Faith, trust.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗:

     All other outward shewes and exterior apparences are common to all religions: As hope, affiance {{transterm

   • Such feelings promptly yielded to his habitual affiance in the divine love.

   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine

     Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have / Most joy and most affiance.

2. (archaic) A solemn engagement, especially a pledge of marriage.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.iv:

     I that Ladie to my spouse had wonne; / Accord of friends, consent of parents sought, / Affiance made, my happinesse begonne […].