provisions

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of provision.

   The expedition loaded its provisions onto sleds before crossing the ice.

   The treaty's provisions required both nations to withdraw their troops within a year.

   Note

   One spelling here covers several kinds of store. On an expedition, provisions are food and supplies laid in for later. In a treaty or statute, they are the clauses that provide for particular matters. In finance, they are money set aside for a future event, and in accounting, liabilities booked against likely losses. The same letters also spell the verb meaning "supplies", which follows a subject rather than an article: the provisions, but she provisions.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of provision.

   The charity provisions remote clinics with medicine and clean water each month.

   She provisions the research station with enough fuel to last the polar night.

   Note

   Here the noun is put to work: to provision something is to supply it with provisions, such as fuel, food or medicine. The verb also has a technical life in computing. There one provisions a user with an account and resources, or provisions a bare-bones machine by installing the software it needs. Both uses take a direct object. In the computing sense, what gets supplied is access and setup rather than stores.

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