Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To condescend to grant or bestow (a privilege, for example); deign.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To guarantee as safe; secure; assure.
- To permit, grant, or bestow: sometimes with implied condescension: as, not to vouchsafe an answer.
- To receive or accept by way of condescension.
- To permit; grant; condescend; deign; stoop.
Wiktionary
- v. To graciously give, to condescendingly grant a right, benefit, outcome, etc.; to deign to acknowledge.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To condescend to grant; to concede; to bestow.
- v. obsolete To receive or accept in condescension.
- v. To condescend; to deign; to yield; to descend or stoop.
WordNet 3.0
- v. grant in a condescending manner
Etymologies
- Middle English vouchen sauf, to warrant as safe : vouchen, to warrant; see vouch + sauf, safe; see safe. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Spirit and word vouchsafe to bl/- ess and sanc/- tify these Thy gifts and creatures of Bread and Wine, that they may be unto us the Body and”
“Because you, of all people on all worlds, and I use the term people loosely, and I grip the term worlds tightly, know that I will never vouchsafe or divulge.”
“It was not sufficient, he thought, for government to protect our rights if it was to vouchsafe our pursuit of happiness.”
“Why, one would almost think that the SPD had brutally murdered socialist leaders fifteen years earlier in a vain attempt to vouchsafe their own base of political power.”
Matthew Yglesias » The Real German Resistance to Hitler: The Social Democrats
“Releasing more bailout funds will require the International Monetary Fund and European institutions to vouchsafe that Greece has not fallen short of its privatization and austerity pledges and the IMF will have to maintain that Greece's mountainous debt burden is sustainable.”
The Wall Street Journal: Move Buys Time for Greece, But Growing Debt Looms
“But if Mr. Coleman is any indication, some GOP elites will dump this political slogan when a faculty member shows up to vouchsafe her new respect for their moderation and realism.”
“I wondered as to where the assistant was located whose duty it was to take down whatever information I might loudly vouchsafe.”
“Then Ajax, at his wits 'end, cries: Zeus, Father, yet save thou Achaia's sons from beneath the gloom,/And make clear day, and vouchsafe unto us with our eyes to see!”
“Since then I've come to believe in Barack Obama even more strongly as I've watched him struggle to provide healthcare for tens of millions of American children, women and men at risk for bankruptcy, unrelieved suffering, even premature death because they lacked the healthcare protection that every civilized society should vouchsafe for its citizens.”
The Huffington Post: The Moral Measure of Obama's Presidency
“And nothing drives the nail further into the proverbial coffin than Phil Angell, Director of Corporate Communications when he gushed to the New York Times: "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe biotech food, our interest is in selling as much of it as possible.”
Printing: Consumers Beware: Monsanto Is A Global Multinational Biotech-Killer
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘vouchsafe’.
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Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 269 more...
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Any words List Its open!!
Im savin it for later
awesepoto
cooliest
sup
a-w-e-s-o-m-e
cool beans dude
hit me man
Rock on
Get a life dude
book timeweird, mongolian, 7457, saitin, toejam, aver, misanthrope, blandishment, cadge, fuschia, fuchsia, discotheque and 367 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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utopia
Words used in the book utopia by sir thomas more
credence, proverb, provost, dissimulation, espy, neologism, vouchsafe, liberality, weal, inquisitive, assentation, verily and 21 more...
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Ancient Influence
Words that inspire a feeling of old and/or mythical influences.
Ogham, sward, willow, hazel, yew, holly, barrow, runes, sepulchre, rill, rivulet, heft and 26 more...
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Filter 1
Hard words level 1
besotted, altricial, consecrate, consternate, desuetude, detractor, dissolute, divisive, emaciated, enamored, ensconce, garishly and 76 more...
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Words I like
A list contrived for the sole purpose of storing words I like to include in my writing; words that inspire or carry power for me.
contrite, meadow, sward, ossary, calumny, moribund, necropolis, chthonic, murmur, erstwhile, chime, beryl and 63 more...
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Words from books I've read
These are some words I didn't know when I read and now I want to know!
Scribble, Newfangled, swift, swathe, budget, obstreperous, trickle, rank, covetous, scratch, hunch, dodge and 179 more...
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All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
anacoluthon, defenestration, hypnopomp, hypnagogue, idioglossia, panopticon, tatterdemalion, abalone, caltrop, miasma, paroxysm, smalt and 475 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. II
cicurate, circumforaneous, codger, comiconomenclaturist, constable, contradistinction, contraindicated, counterpane, coxcomb, decalcomania, decanal, decoction and 307 more...
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known words
words wot i already knew
antisyzygy, calenture, shill, saudade, sehnsucht, squonk, steganographic, anomie, wiggy, grok, hermeneutics, agrise and 206 more...
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quality words
This is a mix of new words I've read studying for the GRE verbal and words I use normally. I also check back on these words if I don't use them often enough.
ineffable, septuagenarian, sesquipedalian, argyle, coalescence, profundity, vivisepulture, defenestrate, concatenate, usurp, diatribe, veracious and 461 more...
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inkhorn's Words
inkhorn, aplomb, apotheosis, asinine, avatar, bombastic, boorish, bromide, bucolic, cagey, canvass, digress and 991 more...
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samuraizack's Words
floccinaucinihili..., pneumonoultramicr..., bombastic, existentialistic, velocipede, aglet, anatomical snuffbox, wonk, tang, funambulist, quakebuttock, flews and 390 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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play words
words for a play
pert, vicissitude, melancholy, vexation, gaud, attestation, renunciation, wax, wrought, sunder, antipodes, reckoning and 236 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for vouchsafe.

cutlery one of those words that runneth over my cup Jan 24, 2010
bilby I keep my coupons locked up in one of these. Jan 22, 2010
cutlery "The doctor has his eccentricities & recounts them gladly for a dram of Portuguese pisco (never to excess), but I vouchsafe he is the only other gentleman on this latitude east of Sydney & west of Valparaiso" (Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, 005.3). Jan 22, 2010