provider
Americannoun
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providers
plural
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a person or thing that provides.
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a person who supports a family or another person.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of provider
Explanation
A provider is a person who gives someone something they need. If your parents both have jobs so they can feed you and buy you what you need, you can call them providers. Your mom's a provider if she works so she can care for you, put food on the table, and send you to school. There are other types of providers as well, although they all give you something you need, often a service. Your school is a provider of education, and the pharmacy around the corner is a provider of medication, makeup, and magazines. It's increasingly common to call your main doctor a "primary care provider."
Vocabulary lists containing provider
Father's Day Words
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"Principles of Business," Vocabulary from Chapter 5
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"A Raisin in the Sun," "My Father is a Simple Man," and "My Mother Pieced Quilts"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The broadband provider has not finalised the number of roles to be cut but it is likely be a sizeable chunk of its 16,000 workforce, the BBC understands.
From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2026
This is the highest in Africa and the second-highest globally, at more than twice the global average, according to GlobalPetrolPrices, an energy-price data provider tracking retail fuel prices in more than 100 countries.
From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2026
DHL Group and contract-warehousing provider GXO Logistics each plan to hire about 25% more seasonal workers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2026
Still, that leaves Virgin Galactic as the sole provider of tourist flights to the edge of space.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2026
Within a month, Jesse and Eric found a local Internet service provider and bought themselves a celebratory Nintendo 64.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
Fox News has also broadened its base of advertisers in recent years and benefits from negotiated increases in revenue from cable and satellite providers that carry the channel.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2026
The California law requires MCA brokers and funders to be licensed as finance providers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
“The experience of using other providers is pretty horrible, honestly,” Chris Quilty, head of the satellite- and space-industry research firm Quilty Space, told MarketWatch in August.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 29, 2026
Separately, Polymarket said on social media that it had temporarily halted trading on its international platform after one of its third-party providers was compromised.
From Barron's ● Oct. 29, 2026
About the problem of trying to convince their kids never to be ashamed of who they were, while all the time hiding their own shame for not being better providers.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
