Vouchsafen

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To provide something in a manner that conveys both assurance and privilege
2. To guarantee or allow something while implying a sense of trustworthiness and favor
3. To grant or bestow something kindly, often with an implication of condescension or special favor

Etymology: Vouchsafe began as two words, "vouch" and "safe," joined in Middle English as "vouchen sauf." "Vouch" comes through Anglo-Norman "vochier" from Latin "vocare," "to call," in the sense of calling someone as a witness or guarantor. "Safe" meant something close to "secure" or "unharmed," so the phrase literally meant to guarantee something as secure. The sense of stooping to grant a favor grew out of that guarantee. When a powerful person vouchsafed something, they were personally standing behind it, and their promise of protection came as a gift rather than a right. Writers therefore used the verb for a superior condescending to bestow something on an inferior, a flavor it still carries in lofty phrases like "vouchsafe a reply." Over time the two parts fused into one spelling, and the verb's grammar followed: it is now a single verb with its own past tense, "vouchsafed."

Synonyms: grant, bestow, confer, allow, permit

Antonyms: withhold, deny, refuse, revoke, take back