provision

Pluralprovisions

Formsprovisions, provisioning, provisioned

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A clause in a law, contract, or other legal document that deals with a particular matter; a stipulation or proviso.

   The lease includes a provision requiring tenants to give sixty days' notice.

   Lawmakers added a provision to the bill capping interest rates.

   Similarcondition, stipulation, proviso

   Note

   Lawyers use the word for a single operative clause, and the plural for a law's content taken together: an arrest is made "in accordance with the provisions of this Act." A provision is usually identified by what it does, such as a provision requiring notice or a provision capping rates. Stipulation and condition are close neighbors, but provision is the neutral term for any clause of an instrument.

2. 2
   nounusually plural

   An item of food or other supplies obtained and kept for future use.

   A provision ship reached the fort in March, carrying flour, salt pork, and lamp oil.

   The settlers gathered provisions to last them through the winter.

   Similarsupply, store, stock

   Note

   Most often met in the plural, as stores of food laid by: Milton's Noah has "provisions laid in large / For Man and Beast." The noun can also be uncountable and measured in time. William Betagh's voyage account of 1728 has "but five months provision" to last the ship to China. In modern English, provisions is the natural word for food packed for a journey or a long stay.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act of providing something, or of making preparations in advance.

   The provision of clean water is the charity's main goal.

   Careful provision for emergencies saved many lives that night.

   Similarsupply, delivery, preparation, planning

   Note

   The sense closest to the word's Latin root. Latin prōvīsiō meant "preparation, foresight," from prōvidēre, "to provide," and reached English through Old French and Middle English. Here provision is the doing, not the stores: Shakespeare's King Lear allots "five days … for provision," time to prepare. Today it takes of for what is supplied and for for what is prepared against.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   Money set aside in advance to pay for a future event.

   The company set aside a provision for major repairs.

   He kept a small provision in case of sudden medical bills.

   Similarreserve, fund, allowance

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To supply someone or something with food and other necessary supplies.

   Quartermasters provision the troops before any long campaign.

   The captain provisioned the vessel for a two-year voyage.

   Similarsupply, stock, equip, furnish

   Note

   The verb turns the stores into an action: you provision an army, a ship, a blockhouse. In Stevenson's Treasure Island, the party "set to provision the blockhouse," tossing stores over the palisade. It takes the recipient directly as its object, unlike provide, which needs with. It also sits naturally in the passive, as in Etz Hayim (2001): "An emancipated slave must be provisioned by the master."

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To give a user the account and resources needed to use a system, or to install software on a bare machine so it can serve a purpose.

   Administrators provision each server with the required software before deployment.

   The cloud platform automatically provisions virtual machines as demand rises.

   Similarconfigure, allocate

   Oppositedeprovision

   Note

   Systems administrators took over the supply verb for machines and accounts: a server is provisioned with software, a user with access. Kenneth Hess's Practical Linux System Administration (2023) recommends provisioning new systems on a private network before they reach production. Its opposite is deprovision, which removes the account or resources once they are no longer needed.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   An amount recorded as a liability or contra account to recognize likely future losses arising from current transactions.

   The company increased its provision for doubtful accounts after the downturn.

   Auditors questioned whether the provision adequately covered expected warranty claims.

   Similarallowance, reserve

   Note

   An accountant's word with a sharper edge than money simply set aside. A provision is booked as a liability, or as a contra account offsetting an asset, so that losses already likely from today's transactions show up in today's figures. It almost always takes for and names the risk: a provision for bad debts, or for warranty claims. A business raises it when it expects worse, as going into a recession.

8. 8
   nounhistoricalBritishcountable

   A papal nomination of someone to a church benefice before it fell vacant, overriding the patron's normal right to present a candidate.

   The abbey lost its preferred candidate when a papal provision installed an outsider.

   Barons complained that each provision stripped them of their right to present a clerk.

   Note

   A term of historical writing, met chiefly in the phrase papal provision, which William Blackstone uses in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769). It belongs to accounts of English law and church history and names a past practice, not a present one. Treat it as a historian's term, and pair it with papal so it is not mistaken for ordinary church appointments.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   The regular induction of a cleric into a benefice, comprising nomination, collation, and installation.

   The provision of the new vicar followed the customary stages of nomination and installation.

   Church records detail each provision granting a cleric his benefice.

   Note

   Canon law uses provision for the ordinary, regular route into a benefice. It covers the whole sequence by which a cleric is named, has the benefice conferred, and is installed. It is easily confused with the papal nomination. That practice bore the same name but cut across this regular sequence, so the context must show which is meant.

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