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Webster's Dictionary (1865)

2 entries under this word

Provide

Pro-vīde', v. t.

verbtransitive

[imp. & p. p. PROVIDED; p. pr. & vb. n. PROVIDING.] [Lat. providere, provisum, from pro, before, and videre, to see; It. provedére, proredere, Sp. proveer, Pg. prover, Pr. provezir, O. Fr. proceoir, porvoir, N. Fr. pourvoir.

Sense 1. To foresee. [A Latinism.] [Obs.] B. Jonson.

Sense 2. To look out for in advance; to procure beforehand; to get, collect, or make ready for future use; to prepare. “Provide things necessary.” Shak.

Sense 3. Hence, to furnish; to afford.

Bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind, hospitable woods provide. Milton.

Sense 4. To furnish; to supply;—followed by with, and formerly by of. “And yet provided him of but one.” Bp. Taylor.

Rome, by the care of the magistrates, was well provided with corn. Arbuthnot.

Sense 5. To appoint to an ecclesiastical benefice before it is vacant. See PROVISOR. Prescott.

☞ Provide, in a transitive sense, is followed by against or for.

Pro-vide', v. i.

verbintransitive

v. i. 1. To procure supplies or means of defense, or to take measures for counteracting or escaping an evil; — followed by against or for; as, to provide against the inclemency of the weather; to provide for the education of a child.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Burke.

Sense 2. To stipulate previously; as, the agreement provides that the party shall incur no loss.