vouchsafe means to graciously give, to condescendingly grant a right, benefit, outcome, etc.; to deign to acknowledge. It carries an Arena rating of 1745, earned across 10 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, vouchsafe ranks #2,307 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #3,135 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #3,625 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #3,950 of 17,163 for Funniest Words.
vouchsafe is pronounced /ˌvaʊt͡ʃˈseɪf/.
Why “vouchsafe” is a great word
To graciously grant or bestow something, often implying condescension on the part of the giver, from the Middle English verbal phrase *vouchen safe*, formed from *vouch* (to warrant or guarantee, from Old French *voucher*, ultimately Latin *vocare*, 'to call') fused with *safe* (secure, from Old French *sauf*, from Latin *salvus*, 'uninjured'); the compacted one-word form appears from the late 14th century. Unlike *deign*, which emphasizes the act of stooping to perform some task oneself, or *grant*, which merely records the transfer of possession without affect, *vouchsafe* carries the particular hauteur of the donor who, by guaranteeing the recipient's safety in receiving, frames the gift as indulgence. It is the sovereign permitting a subject to kiss the hem, the parent reluctantly allowing a child a glimpse of some treasured object, the patron who answers a request with the implied gift of their attention itself—each transaction marked by that small, irreducible distance between those who give and those who must be made secure enough to receive.
Etymology
From vouch + safe, written as two words in Middle English and early Modern English.
verb
- To graciously give, to condescendingly grant a right, benefit, outcome, etc.; to deign to acknowledge.
- To receive or accept in condescension.
- To disclose or divulge.e.g.“She vouchsafed to me that she regretted ever marrying him.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.