overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

abide.

To endure without yielding; to withstand.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/əˈbaɪd/Received-Pronunciation/əˈbaɪd/US
  1. To endure without yielding; to withstand.

    transitive
    The old oak tree abides the wind endlessly.
  2. To bear patiently.

    transitive
    "I never could abide shoemakers," said an old servant,—and it ended in her marrying one.
  3. To pay for; to take the consequences of.

    transitive
  4. Used in a phrasal verb: abide by (“to accept and act in accordance with”).

    The new teacher was strict and the students did not want to abide by his rules.
  5. To wait in expectation.

    intransitive · obsolete
  6. To pause; to delay.

    intransitive · obsolete
  7. To stay; to continue in a place; to remain stable or fixed in some state or condition; to be left.

    Scotland · archaic · intransitive
  8. To have one's abode.

    archaic · intransitive
  9. To endure; to remain; to last.

    archaic · intransitive
  10. To stand ready for; to await someone; watch for.

    archaic · transitive
  11. To endure or undergo a hard trial or a task; to stand up under.

    obsolete · transitive
  12. To await submissively; accept without question; submit to.

    archaic · transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ud-s-? Proto-Indo-European *h₂u-s-? Proto-Germanic *uz- Proto-Indo-European *bʰeydʰ- Proto-Indo-European *bʰéydʰeti Proto-Germanic *bīdaną Proto-Germanic *uzbīdaną Proto-West Germanic *uʀbīdan Old English ābīdan Middle English abyden English abide From Middle English abyden, from Old English ābīdan (“to abide, wait, remain, delay, remain behind; survive; wait for, await; expect”), from Proto-West Germanic *uʀbīdan, from Proto-Germanic *uzbīdaną (“to expect, tolerate”), equivalent to a- + bide. Cognate with Scots abide (“to abide, remain”), Middle High German erbīten (“to await, expect”), Gothic 𐌿𐍃𐌱𐌴𐌹𐌳𐌰𐌽 (usbeidan, “to expect, await, have patience”). The sense of pay for is due to influence from aby.

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

abide has 5 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

abide studioabide workshello, abide

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.