vouchsafe

English

WOTD – 10 November 2007

Etymology

From vouch +‎ safe, written as two words in Middle English and early Modern English.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˌvaʊt͡ʃˈseɪf/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): [ˌvʌʊtʃˈseɪf]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪf
• Hyphenation: vouch‧safe

Verb

vouchsafe (third-person singular simple present vouchsafes, present participle vouchsafing, simple past and past participle vouchsafed)

1. To graciously give, to condescendingly grant a right, benefit, outcome, etc.; to deign to acknowledge.

   Synonym: (archaic) vouch

   • 1599?, William Shakespeare, Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies, London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, Julius Caesar, Act III, scene i, page 119:

     If Brutus will vouchſafe that Antony / May ſafely come to him ...

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Shake-speares sonnets: Neuer before Imprinted‎^[1], London: G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe], and are to be solde by William Aspley, →OCLC, sonnet 135:

     Wilt thou, whoſe will is large and ſpacious, / Not once vouchſafe to hide my will in thine?

   • 1964 July, “The mythology of monorails”, in Modern Railways, page 57:

     Needless to say, we have been vouchsafed no idea of what this might cost the innocent victims, the ratepayers.

   • 2018, Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity—Creed, Country, Color, Class, Culture, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, →ISBN, page 64:

     The fundamentalist is concerned with what accords with some ultimate, sacred truth, as vouchsafed to an ancestral scribe or prophet, and not with traditions of human errancy.

2. To receive or accept in condescension.
   • 1913, Eleanor H. Porter, chapter 8, in Pollyanna‎^[2], L.C. Page, →OCLC:

     Nancy's lips parted abruptly, as if there were angry words all ready to come; but her eyes, resting on Pollyanna's jubilantly trustful face, saw something that prevented the words being spoken.
     "Humph!" she vouchsafed. Then, showing her old-time interest, she went on: "But, say, it is queer, his speakin' to you, honestly, Miss Pollyanna. He don't speak ter no one; and he lives all alone in a great big lovely house all full of jest grand things, they say. Some says he's crazy, and some jest cross; and some says he's got a skeleton in his closet."

3. To disclose or divulge.

   She vouchsafed to me that she regretted ever marrying him.

   • 1879, F. D. Morice, Pindar, chapter 8, page 129:

     His predictions were at first to be guided by direct intimations vouchsafed to him by the god; […]

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:vouchsafe.

Synonyms

• deign

Related terms

• vouchsafement
• vouchsafing

Translations

Condescendingly grant a right

• Bulgarian: благоволявам (blagovoljavam)
• Dutch: genadig toestaan, vergunnen (nl)
• French: accorder de manière clémente
• Georgian: ბოძება (boʒeba), მიცემა (micema), აღიარება (aɣiareba)
• German: gewähren (de)
• Greek: αξιώνω (el) (axióno)
• Polish: zaszczycać impf, zaszczycić pf
• Portuguese: permitir (pt)
• Russian: удоста́ивать (ru) impf (udostáivatʹ),удосто́ить (ru) pf (udostóitʹ), соизво́лить (ru) pf (soizvólitʹ) + verb (give, grant, etc.)
• Turkish: bahşetmek (tr), ihsan etmek, lütfetmek (tr)

References

• “vouchsafe”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.