provide

present singular third person provides · participle present providing · participle past provided · past provided · first person past singular provided · archaic present second person singular providest · past second person singular provided · archaic past second person singular providedst · present singular third person provides · archaic present singular third person provideth · past singular third person provided · past plural provided · past subjunctive provided · participle present providing · participle past provided

1. To make a living; earn money for necessities.

   It is difficult to provide for my family working on minimum wage.

2. To act to prepare for something.

   provide against disaster.

3. To establish as a previous condition; to stipulate.

   The contract provides that the work be well done.

   1 more example

   I'll lend you the money, provided that you pay it back by Monday.

4. To give what is needed or desired, especially basic needs.

   This resort provides an evening meal for its guests.

   5 more examples

   Don't bother bringing equipment, as we will provide it.

   We aim to provide the local community with more green spaces.

   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, →ISBN, page 320

   LSC provides grants to nonprofits nationwide that in turn provide civil legal aid to those who otherwise can't afford it. The beneficiaries of LSC funding include homeless veterans, low-income workers and victims of domestic abuse.

   2017 March 9, Jeanne Sahadi, “Lawyers fear Trump may kill legal aid funding for the poor”, in CNN Business, archived from the original on 05 May 2025

   Climate Reanalyzer uses data from the NCEP climate forecast system to provide a time series of daily mean two-metre air temperature, based on readings from surface, air balloon and satellite observations.

   2023 July 7, “UN says climate change ‘out of control’ after likely hottest week on record”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

5. To furnish (with), cause to be present, supply.

   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

   Synonyms: afford, treat

6. To make possible or attainable.

   He provides us with an alternative option.

   2 more examples

   Plants provide (us) with the oxygen we breathe.

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

   Comus

   1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC

7. LatinismobsoleteTo foresee, to consider in advance.

   2 more examples

   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), Ben[jamin] Jonson, Seianus His Fall, London: […] G[eorge] Elld, for Thomas Thorpe, published 1605, →OCLC, (please specify the page)

   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.

   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. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: American Stationers’ Company; John B. Russell, →OCLC