Definition of "provide"

provide

/pɹəˈvaɪd/

verb
third-person singular simple present provides, present participle providing, simple past and past participle provided
1. To make a living; earn money for necessities.
2. To act to prepare for something.
3. To establish as a previous condition; to stipulate.
4. To give what is needed or desired, especially basic needs.
  Quotations
  Humans provided the animals with food and protection in exchange for which the animals provided the humans their milk, eggs, and—yes—their flesh.
  2006, Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Penguin Press, page 320
5. To furnish (with), cause to be present.
  Quotations
  Rome […] was generally well provided with corn.
  1727, John Arbuthnot, Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights and Measures. Explain'd and exemplify'd in several dissertations
6. To make possible or attainable.
  Quotations
  Bring me berries, or such cooling fruit / As the kind, hospitable woods provide.
  1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903,
7. (obsolete, Latinism) To foresee, to consider in advance.
  Quotations
  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.
  1603 (first performance; published 1605), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Seianus his Fall. A Tragœdie. […]”, in The Workes of Ben Jonson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616
  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
  1606, Ben Jonson, Volpone, Dedication, in Gifford’s 1816 edition volume III page 164
8. To appoint to an ecclesiastical benefice before it is vacant. See provisor.
  Quotations
  provide such natives to the higher dignities of the church
  1838, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: American Stationers’ Company; John B. Russell

Definition of "provide"

provide

verb

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