depend

What it means

1. intransitiveTo be contingent or conditioned; to have something as a necessary condition

   We would like to go skiing, but it depends on the amount of snow.

   2 more examples

   Gold don't carry any curse with it. It all depends on whether or not the guy who finds it is the right guy. The way I see it, gold can be as much of a blessing as a curse

   1948, John Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, spoken by Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart)

   There's not much room for error in the unforgiving Arctic wilderness, where hunters' lives depend on skill, experience, and a buddy's helping hand.

   1990 August, John Bockstoce, “Changing Images of the Northwest Passage”, in National Geographic, volume 178, number 2, page 18

   Synonyms: hinge on, ride, pivot

2. intransitiveTo trust; to have confidence; to rely.

   we depend on the mailman to come at the usual time.

   2 more examples

   we should all be able to depend on the word or assurance of our friends

   "It's another wedding present, you may depend," Dicky said—"a beastly surprise, I shouldn't wonder."

   1904, E[dith] Nesbit, “(please specify the page)”, in New Treasure Seekers, London: Ernest Benn, →OCLC

3. literarygovernmentTo hang down; to be sustained by being fastened or attached to something above, especially in heraldry, where a badge, decoration, or element is suspended from another part of an achievement of arms.

   He had prepared a sort of collar of leather with many straps depending from it.

   1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

   5 more examples

   The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows.

   1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

   In the centre is an Imperial Crown, from which depend a Harp of gold and the Badge.

   1893, John Edwin Cussen (1837–1899), Handbook of Heraldry, 4th edition, London: Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly, via Internet Archive (UC Berkeley), page 247

   Bronze chandeliers with many globes depended from the low, slightly vaulted ceiling, and the fresco paintings ran flat and dull all round the walls without windows, representing scenes of the chase and of outdoor revelry in medieval costumes.

   1907, Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent

   Besides, if you worked up to be a cadet officer, you got to wear a Sam Browne belt, from which depended a nifty saber.

   1982, Paul Fussell, My War

   At the wedding feast of Agnes and Bob, all was meant for the best, and there was grewat good humour, but there was also a stiffness, a constraint. It did not touch them: Agnes was radiant in a gown of white silksand laces which would not have disgraced the Castle itself, her fair hair bound and coiled after the fashion of that year, and wearing her father's special gift to her, a necklace of interwoven gold and silver from which depended a fiery stone, intricately cut, and housed within elaborate gold, thin-hammered.

   1988, Thomas Flanagan, novel: The Tenants of Time chapter 13

In a sentence

We would like to go skiing, but it depends on the amount of snow.

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*de
2. Proto-Indo-European*déh₁
3. Proto-Italic*dē
4. Latindē
5. Latindē-
6. Proto-Indo-European*(s)pend-
7. Proto-Indo-European*(s)pn̥d-éh₁ye-ti
8. Proto-Italic*pendējō
9. Proto-Italic*pendēō
10. Latinpendeō
11. Latindependeō
12. Old Frenchdependre
13. Middle Englishdependen
14. Englishdepend

Inherited from Middle English dependen, from Old French dependre, from Latin dependeō, from dē- + pendeō (“to be suspended, hang”). In this sense, displaced native Old English hangian (“to hang or depend”).