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Forbear vs Forego - What's the difference?

forbear | forego |

As verbs the difference between forbear and forego

is that forbear is to keep away from; to avoid; to abstain from; to give up while forego is to precede, to go before or forego can be ; to abandon, to relinquish.

As a noun forbear

is .

forbear

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) forberen, from (etyl) . (got)

Verb

  • To keep away from; to avoid; to abstain from; to give up.
  • To refrain from proceeding; to pause; to delay.
  • * Bible, 1 Kings xxii. 6
    • Shall I go to battle, or shall I forbear ?
  • To refuse; to decline; to give no heed.
  • * Bible, Ezekiel ii. 7
    • Thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear .
  • To control oneself when provoked.
  • * Cowper
    • The kindest and the happiest pair / Will find occasion to forbear .
  • * Old proverb
    • Both bear and forbear .
    Related terms
    * forbearance * forbearant

    Etymology 2

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • * [1906] 2004, Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, Ethel Wedgwood tr.
    • Sirs, I am quite sure that the King of England's forbears rightly and justly lost the conquered lands that I hold [...]
  • * [1936] 2004, Raymond William Firth, We the Tikopia [http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=Eiji-EnuhXUC&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&sig=aB2VV0fcWv6lkQPQatQQbDhlm_8]
    • One does not take one’s family name therefrom, and again the position of the mother in that group is determined through her father and his male forbears in turn; this too is a patrilineal group.
  • * 1997, H. L. Hix, Understanding W. S. Merwin [http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=8JIveUt8StQC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&sig=_AETFoZUYlti38_Va0zOHD4yZTk]
    • Beginning with the bald declaration “I think I was cold in the womb,” the speaker in “The Forbears'” then decides that his brother (who died soon after birth) must also have been cold in the womb, like his grandfather John and the ' forbears who antedated John:
    English heteronyms

    forego

    English

    Etymology 1

    (etyl) .

    Verb

  • To precede, to go before.
  • * Wordsworth
    • pleasing remembrance of a thought foregone
    Usage notes
    * The sense to precede'' is usually found in the form of the participles ''foregone'' (especially in the phrase "a foregone conclusion") and ''foregoing (usually used either attributively, as in "the foregoing discussion", or substantively, as in "subject to the foregoing").

    Etymology 2

    See forgo

    Verb

  • ; to abandon, to relinquish
  • * 1762 Waller, T. The White Witch of the Wood, or the Devil of Broxbon'', in ''The Beauties of all the Magazines Selected, for the Year 1762 , Vol. I (February), page 34:
    • […] for on no other terms does she desire a reconciliation, but will sooner forego all the hopes to which her birth entitles her, and get her bread by service, than ever yield to become the wife of the ——.
    Usage notes
    * Many writers prefer the spelling forgo on the grounds that it avoids ambiguity.

    References

    * *

    Anagrams

    * English irregular verbs