proviso

See also: Proviso

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin proviso (“it being provided”), ablative singular neuter of provisus, past participle of providere (“to provide”); see provide.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pɹəˈvaɪzoʊ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

proviso (plural provisos or provisoes)

1. A conditional provision to an agreement.
   • 2021 July 1, Gregory McNamee, “Does spinach make you strong? Ask Popeye – and science”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     Now, with all these provisos in mind, what’s the best way to put spinach to work? All due respect to Popeye, a can may not be the tastiest way to introduce it to your table.

   • 2023 June 10, Majlie de Puy Kamp, Curt Devine, Audrey Ash, Casey Tolan, Allison Gordon and Pamela Brown, “As horse racing’s best trainers rake in millions, records show they’ve violated rules aimed at keeping the animals safe”, in CNN‎^[2]:

     The biggest change in the governance of American horse racing was tucked into a 2020 federal spending bill. That proviso ultimately created the national Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, or HISA – a move that, after three previous legislative attempts, found support from federal lawmakers after a particularly deadly season at a California racetrack.

   • 2025 July 13, Aaron Blake, “Trump’s mass deportation is backfiring”, in CNN‎^[3]:

     The writing has been on the wall that Americans’ support for mass deportation was subject to all kinds of caveats and provisos.

Related terms

• provide
• provision
• provisional
• proviso quod

Translations

conditional provision to an agreement

• Bulgarian: условие (bg) n (uslovie), уговорка (bg) f (ugovorka)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 但書 / 但书 (zh) (dànshū)

• Dutch: voorbehoud (nl)
• Finnish: varaus (fi), varauma (fi)
• French: provision (fr) f (à un accord), réserve (fr) f
• Galician: condición (gl) f
• German: Bedingung (de) f, Maßgabe (de) f, Vorbehalt (de) m, Vorbehaltsklausel f, Kautel (de) f
• Japanese: 但書 (ただしがき, tadashigaki)
• Norwegian: forbehold (no) n
• Polish: klauzula (pl) f
• Russian: усло́вие (ru) n (uslóvije), огово́рка (ru) f (ogovórka) (в догово́ре)
• Scottish Gaelic: cùmhnant m, coingheall m
• Serbo-Croatian: uvjet (sh) m, uslov (sh) m
• Spanish: salvedad
• Swedish: förbehåll (sv), reservation (sv)

Further reading

• “proviso”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “proviso”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Latin

Participle

prōvīsō

1. dative/ablative masculine/neuter singular of prōvīsus

References

• “proviso”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “proviso”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "proviso", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “proviso”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.