Word Direct Answers

What does "provide" mean?

Provide: To supply; to afford; to contribute. Bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind, hospitable woods provide. Milton.

Additional senses

  1. 2.To furnish; to supply; -- formerly followed by of, now by with. "And yet provided him of but one." Jer. Taylor. "Rome . . . was well provided with corn." Arbuthnot.
  2. 3.To establish as a previous condition; to stipulate; as, the contract provides that the work be well done.
  3. 4.To foresee. Note: [A Latinism] [Obs.] B. Jonson.
  4. 5.To appoint to an ecclesiastical benefice before it is vacant. See Provisor. Prescott.
  5. 6.To procure supplies or means in advance; to take measures beforehand in view of an expected or a possible future need, especially a danger or 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.
  6. 7.To stipulate previously; to condition; as, the agreement provides for an early completion of the work.

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