Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To keep or ward off; avert.
- transitive verb Archaic To forbid.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To fend off; avert; forbid.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb Archaic To prohibit; to forbid; to avert.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive, dated To
prohibit ; toforbid ; toavert .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb prevent the occurrence of; prevent from happening
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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[Footnote: Cf. the prefix "for -" in English "forfend," to keep away, to avert, "forbid," to exclude from, to command against, "forbear," to refrain from, etc.]
A Complete Grammar of Esperanto Ivy Kellerman Reed 1922
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I’ll forfend from the typical look at all the vendors photograph, you’ve seen them before.
Of Coups and Cowboy Hats; my Fall-IN! 2009 Travelogue « Third Point of Singularity 2009
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Heaven forfend and forbear that we actually admit we have “wiggly bits” under our clothes, much less during “family” viewing hours.
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It appears to do quite well in the marketplace as things stand, and lumping it together with the mainstream might, heaven forfend, see a decline in the sale of fantasy trilogies.
MIND MELD: What You Should Know About Speculative Fiction and Mainstream Acceptance (Part 2) 2009
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That may or may not be true (Bibi Netanyahu duplicitous — heaven forfend!).
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Heaven forfend if Ed had been female: in this sort of ordering, all girls, however talented or aged, come lower than the youngest of boys.
Why treat Ed Miliband as a younger son who should 'know his place'? Katharine Viner 2010
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The question itself might seem vaguely offensive, but one has to wonder given the howls about Obama “apologizing for America” anytime he publicly intimates that any past foreign policy of the United States might have been mistaken — or, heaven forfend, even be the source of some degree of international animus against us.
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It appears to do quite well in the marketplace as things stand, and lumping it together with the mainstream might, heaven forfend, see a decline in the sale of fantasy trilogies.
October 2009 2009
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This is partly because the work's previous presentation in a Broadway house under the auspices of Cameron Mackintosh, known for blockbuster musicals, stirred up a somewhat antagonistic debate: Is this theater or, h eaven forfend, a ballet?
Fair Feathered Friends Robert Greskovic 2010
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I little knew, and less I cared, for I lived always in the moment and let others forecast, forfend, and travail their anxiety.
Chapter 15 2010
grandpa27 commented on the word forfend
Heaven forfend that I should add my two cents!
April 16, 2016
bilby commented on the word forfend
All we care about here is money.
April 17, 2016
stuartmathergibson commented on the word forfend
forfend
To keep or ward off; avert.
January 30, 2022