indemnify means to secure against loss or damage; to insure. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 79 out of 100.
indemnify is pronounced /ɪnˈdɛm.nɪ.faɪ/.
Why “indemnify” is a great word
INDEMNIFY — [Verb] To compensate or reimburse someone for a loss, damage, or expense incurred. From Latin indemnis ("unhurt, free from loss"), from in- ("not") + damnum ("loss, damage"), + the English verb-forming suffix -ify. First recorded in English 1605–15. Unlike “reimburse,” which repays a specific, prior expenditure, or “insure,” which names the contractual promise of future protection, to indemnify is the direct act of restoring wholeness. It is the corporate check for a neighbor's shattered fence, the quiet settlement for a surgeon's error, or the legal guarantee shielding a director from suit—a financial suture for a wound already inflicted, an attempt to restore a balance the world has tipped.
Etymology
From indemn (“unhurt”) + -ify (forming verbs)
verb
- To secure against loss or damage; to insure.“The states must at last engage to the merchants here that they will indemnify them from all that shall fall out.”
- To compensate or reimburse someone for some expense or injury.“The lender of a thing for use must indemnify the borrower for damage caused by defects or vices in it, which he knew at the time of lending, and concealed from the borrower.”
- to hurt, to harm“1583, Thomas Stocker's translation of A tragicall historie of the troubles and ciuile warres of the lowe Countries, i. 63a
He... did not belieue that his Maiestie by this occasion coulde any way be endemnified.”