provide
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: prə-vīdʹ
ipa: /pɹəˈvaɪd/
rhymes: -aɪd
Forms: form: provides
form: providing
form: provided
form: provided
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: provide
form: provide
form: provided
form: provide
form: providest
form: provided
form: providedst
form: provides
form: provideth
form: provided
form: provide
form: provided
form: provide
form: provided
form: provide
form: -
form: providing
form: provided
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English providen, from Latin prōvidēre (“to foresee, act with foresight”). Doublet of purvey.
Senses: examples: text: It is difficult to provide for my family working on minimum wage.
glosses: To make a living; earn money for necessities.
examples: text: provide against disaster.
glosses: To act to prepare for something.
examples: text: The contract provides that the work be well done.
text: I'll lend you the money, provided that you pay it back by Monday.
glosses: To establish as a previous condition; to stipulate.
examples: text: Don't bother bringing equipment, as we will provide it.
text: We aim to provide the local community with more green spaces.
text: Humans provided the animals with food and protection in exchange for which the animals provided the humans their milk, eggs, and—yes—their flesh.
ref: 2006, Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 320:
text: LSC provides grants to nonprofits nationwide that in turn provide civil legal aid to those who otherwise can't afford it. The beneficiaries of LSC funding include homeless veterans, low-income workers and victims of domestic abuse.
ref: 2017 March 9, Jeanne Sahadi, “Lawyers fear Trump may kill legal aid funding for the poor”, in CNN Business:
text: Climate Reanalyzer uses data from the NCEP climate forecast system to provide a time series of daily mean two-metre air temperature, based on readings from surface, air balloon and satellite observations.
ref: 2023 July 7, “UN says climate change ‘out of control’ after likely hottest week on record”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
glosses: To give what is needed or desired, especially basic needs.
examples: text: Rome […] was generally well provided with corn.
ref: 1727, John Arbuthnot, Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights and Measures. Explain'd and exemplify'd in several dissertations:
synonyms: afford
glosses: To furnish (with), cause to be present, supply.
examples: text: He provides us with an alternative option.
text: Bring me berries, or such cooling fruit / As the kind, hospitable woods provide.
ref: 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC:
english: Comus
translation: Comus
glosses: To make possible or attainable.
examples: text: We have not been covetous, honourable fathers, to change, neither is it now any new lust that alters our affection, or old lothing, but those needful jealousies of state, that warn wiser princes hourly to provide their safety, and do teach them how learned a thing it is to beware of the humblest enemy; much more of those great ones, whom their own employed favours have made fit for their fears.
ref: 1603 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, Seianus His Fall, London: […] G[eorge] Elld, for Thomas Thorpe, published 1605, →OCLC, (please specify the page):
text: As for those that will (by faults which charity hath raked up, or common honesty concealed) make themselves a name with the multitude, or, to draw their rude and beastly claps, care not whose living faces they intrench with their petulant styles, may they do it without a rival, for me! I choose rather to live graved in obscurity, than share with them in so preposterous a fame. Nor can I blame the wishes of those severe and wise patriots, who providing the hurts these licentious spirits may do in a state, desire rather to see fools and devils, and those antique relics of barbarism retrieved, with all other ridiculous and exploded follies, than behold the wounds of private men, of princes and nations
ref: 1606, Ben Jonson, Volpone, Dedication, in Gifford’s 1816 edition volume III page 164:
glosses: To foresee, to consider in advance.
examples: text: provide such natives to the higher dignities of the church
ref: 1838, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: American Stationers’ Company; John B. Russell, →OCLC:
glosses: To appoint to an ecclesiastical benefice before it is vacant. See provisor.
Derived terms: as provided for
provider
unprovided
Related terms: provision