Noun

(en noun)

An item of goods or supplies, especially food, obtained for future use.

* Francis Bacon

making provision for the relief of strangers

* Milton

And of provisions laid in large, / For man and beast.

The act of providing, or making previous preparation.

(Shakespeare)

Money set aside for a future event.

(accounting) A liability or contra account to recognise likely future adverse events associated with current transactions.

We increased our provision for bad debts on credit sales going into the recession.

(legal) A clause in a legal instrument, a law, etc., providing for a particular matter; stipulation; proviso.

An arrest shall be made in accordance with the provisions of this Act.

(Roman Catholic) Regular induction into a benefice, comprehending nomination, collation, and installation.

(UK, historical) A nomination by the pope to a benefice before it became vacant, depriving the patron of his right of presentation.

(Blackstone)

Noun

(en noun)

Subject; theme; a category or general area of interest.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= The machine of a new soul , passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure. Yet this is the level of organisation that does the actual thinking—and is, presumably, the seat of consciousness.}}

(Internet) Discussion thread.

(obsolete) An argument or reason.

* Bishop Wilkins

contumacious persons, who are not to be fixed by any principles, whom no topics can work upon

(obsolete, medicine) An external local application or remedy, such as a plaster, a blister, etc.

(Wiseman)