Providence

[Dr. Goodword]

• providence •

Pronunciation: prah-vê-dens • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. Care and foresight in the management of resources, planning for the future. 2. The prudence and foresight shown by a deity in the care of the world and its creatures. 3. The deity itself (usually capitalized as Providence).

Notes: Today's word is the noun from the adjective provident with the common suffix -s, that is, provident-s, expressed by the spelling "ce" to throw speakers off track, as English is wont to do. Provident means "prudent, foreseeing" and "thrifty, frugal". Providential overlaps provident in the first meaning, but its second meaning goes to the third meaning of the noun: "divine". So, 'a providential escape' is one that can be explained only by the intervention of the Almighty.

In Play: Foresight and prudent management of resources often provide happy results: "Armbruster's financial providence allowed him to retire a week before he would have been fired." Here is the way the adjectives work: "Finn and Haddie Fry are provident children who never leave their parents without anything to do. It is providential that their parents are still among the living."

Word History: "Foresight" is not a coincidental meaning of this Good Word: it is based on the PIE word for "see", weid-, the same root that gave us vision and video. The Latin verb which became the French noun English borrowed (keeping up?), was providere "to provide for" from pro "ahead" + videre "to see". Envy goes back to Latin invidere "to look at enviously", while idea is the result of a dropped [w], resulting in ancient Greek idea "appearance, form, thought". History (and its telling reduction, story) comes from Greek histor "a wise, learned man". If we decode it, we find wid+tor where the [dt] regularly becomes [st]. The initial [w], as we saw in idea, drops off. In this case, the exposed vowel attracts a protective [h].

[Slava]

I never thought of a providential escape as more than simply fortuitous or well-timed. Something to try to remember for reading more deeply into things.

[Perry Lassiter]

I read one author who said providence is the main thing people want to know about the world. What is the divinity's intent for me? In generic terms, what does the universe hold for me?

[George Kovac]

I have always liked the sound and context of "providence." It seems so sober, so sensible, so responsible... and it avoids the baggage of invoking a specific (read: Christian) context, especially in a pluralistic venue where a specific religious preference would be out of place. The listener is free to add whatever further larger meaning (theological or not) he or she wants to the concept of "providence."

The word "providence" has an 18th/19th century ring to it, which is appropriate, as it was a favorite word among the founding fathers of the United States, many of whom were Deists, and all of whom believed in the secular foundation of their experiment in creating a new government. I read--but no longer recall the source for verification--that in the writings and speeches of George Washington there are no more than one or two known references to "God" and none at all to Jesus Christ. Washington's preferred word was "providence." That was a good word then, and it is a good word today.

[tkowal]

Some dictionaries include the word previdential related to social security. I wonder whether there exists previdence.

[Philip Hudson]

Providence Plantation was the first permanent European American settlement in present-day Rhode Island. It was established at Providence in 1636 by English clergyman Roger Williams (Wiki)