afford

Verb

afford (third-person singular simple present affords, present participle affording, simple past and past participle afforded)

1. To incur, stand, or bear without serious detriment, as an act which might under other circumstances be injurious; (usually after an expression of ability, as could, able, difficult) to be able or rich enough; to spare.
   • I think we can afford the extra hour it will take. We can only afford to buy a small car at the moment.
   • “[…] We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic?[…]”1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
2. (obsolete) To offer, provide, or supply, as in selling, granting or expending, with profit, or without too great a loss.
   • Alfred affords his goods cheaper than Bantock.
3. (rare) To give forth; to supply, yield, or produce as the natural result, fruit, or issue.
   • Grapes afford wine. Olives afford oil. The earth affords fruit. The sea affords an abundant supply of fish.
   • The percentage of nutritive elements contained in the parsnip is very small; so small, indeed, that one pound of parsnips affords hardly one fifth of an ounce of nitrogenous or muscle-forming material.1892, Ella Eaton Kellogg, “Vegetables”, in Science in the Kitchen: A Scientific Treatise on Food Substances and Their Dietetic Properties, Together with a Practical Explanation of the Principles of...
4. To give, grant, or confer, with a remoter reference to its being the natural result; to provide; to furnish.
   • A good life affords consolation in old age.
   • One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC