fare
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /fɛə/
ipa: /fɛɚ/
ipa: /feː/
note: without the cheer–chair merger
ipa: /ˈfeə/
note: New Zealand, cheer–chair merger
ipa: /ˈfiə/
ipa: /ˈfeɹ/
note: Lancashire, fair–fur merger
ipa: /ˈfɜː(ɹ)/
homophone: fair
homophone: fear (cheer–chair merger)
homophone: fir
homophone: fur (both fair–fur merger)
rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)
Forms: form: fares
form: faring
form: fared
form: fared
form: faren
Etymology: From Middle English faren, from Old English faran (“to travel, journey”), from Proto-West Germanic *faran, from Proto-Germanic *faraną, from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“a going, passage”).
Cognate with West Frisian farre, Dutch varen (“to sail”), German fahren (“to travel”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål fare, Norwegian Nynorsk and Icelandic fara (“to go”) and Swedish fara (“to travel”).
Senses: examples: text: Behold! A knight fares forth.
text: […]And fared like a furious wyld Beare, / Whose whelpes are stolne away, she being otherwhere.
ref: 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
text: I know that this was Life,—the track
⁠Whereon with equal feet we fared;
⁠And then, as now, the day prepared
The daily burden for the back.
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 42:
text: Then he came down rejoicing and said, "I have seen what seemeth to be a city as 'twere a pigeon." Hereat we rejoiced and, ere an hour of the day had passed, the buildings showed plain in the offing and we asked the Captain, "What is the name of yonder city?" and he answered "By Allah I wot not, for I never saw it before and never sailed these seas in my life: but, since our troubles have ended in safety, remains for you only to land their with your merchandise and, if you find selling profitable, sell and make your market of what is there; and if not, we will rest here two days and provision ourselves and fare away.
ref: 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 17:
glosses: To go, travel.
examples: text: How did you fare in the exam?
text: So fares the stag among the enraged hounds.
ref: 1642, John Denham, Cooper's Hill:
text: There are many discomforting gaps in statistics about the book trades generally, but the reprint sector fares worst—it has no statistical summary or trend reports based on factual evidence.
ref: 1972, Carol A. Nemeyer, Scholarly Reprint Publishing in the United States, New York, N.Y.: R. R. Bowker Co., →ISBN, page 8:
text: Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits. Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.
ref: 2013 July 19, Ian Sample, “Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 34:
text: While long-distance and commuter rail travel still fared well, train travel to seaside resorts was perhaps inevitably falling away.
ref: 2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wreccker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 51:
glosses: To get along, succeed (well or badly); to be in any state, or pass through any experience, good or bad; to be attended with any circumstances or train of events.
examples: text: There was a certain rich man which […] fared sumptuously every day.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 16:19:
glosses: To eat, dine.
examples: text: We shall see how it will fare with him.
text: So fares it when with truth falsehood contends.
ref: 1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 3:
text: Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land.
ref: 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 23:
glosses: To happen well, or ill.
examples: text: We will continue to monitor how the hurricane fares against projected models.
text: He was a man of Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about his diet at your table, excusing himself by saying that he must eat sparingly and fare hard, as became a soldier or one who was fitting himself for difficult enterprises, a life of exposure.
ref: 1859, Henry David Thoreau, A Plea for Captain John Brown:
glosses: To move along; proceed; progress; advance
Derived terms: afare
airfaring
farer
fare thee well
farewell
forfare
forthfare
illfare
misfare
nightfaring
overfare
seafaring
skyfaring
spacefaring
starfaring
wayfare
wayfaring
welfare
woefare