Other forms: fending, fended, fends
To fend is to ward something off, or to look after yourself. Fend off questions, fend for yourself, fending them off.
It survives almost entirely in two phrases: fend off, meaning to keep something at bay, and fend for yourself, meaning to manage without help. Both are common. Note that fend is a shortening of defend, so fending off and defending are the same word at different lengths; and that fender, the thing that protects a hull or a hearth, comes from the same root.
1verbwardTo ward something off.
“She used her umbrella to fend off the angry goose.”
2verbfendTo look after yourself without help.
“After their parents died, the older children had to fend for themselves.”
fend is a warding off or managing.
Middle English fenden is a shortening of defenden, to defend, from Latin defendere, to ward off. Fender and defence come from the same warding.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷʰen- — strike, kill
Proto-Italic
*fendō
Latin
dēfendō — to ward off
Old French
deffendre
Middle English
fenden — defend, fight, prevent
English, today
fend
Built from
From Middle English fenden (“defend, fight, prevent”), shortening of defenden (“defend”), from Old French deffendre (Modern défendre), from Latin dēfendō (“to ward off”), from dē + fendō, from Proto-Italic fendō, from Proto-Indo-European gʷʰen- (“strike, kill”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA