Other forms: provided, provides, providing
To provide is to give people what they need. Provide food, provide shelter, the school provides lunch.
Two prepositions matter and they mean different things: provide somebody with something, and provide something for somebody. Both are correct; provide somebody something is not. To provide for a family means to earn enough to keep them, which is a fixed use. Provided that and providing that both mean if — a formal conditional common in contracts. Note provider, which now usually means a company supplying a service: an internet provider, a healthcare provider.
1verbprovideTo give people what they need.
“The school provides lunch for everybody.”
2verbearnTo earn enough to keep a family.
“He worked two jobs to provide for them.”
3verbstateTo state as a condition, in a law or agreement.
“The contract provides that either side may leave with a month's notice.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
provide is a way of giving.
Also accepted in games: supply
Latin providere is pro-, ahead, plus videre, to see — to see ahead. Provide, provision, providence and prudent are all the same verb: providing for somebody is literally foreseeing what they will need.
Proto-Indo-European
*per-
Latin
prōvideō — to foresee, act with foresight
Middle English
providen
English, today
provide
Middle English providen, from Latin prōvideō (“to foresee, act with foresight”). a doublet of purvey.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA