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Promise   /prˈɑməs/   Listen
verb
Promise  v. t.  (past & past part. promised; pres. part. promising)  
1.
To engage to do, give, make, or to refrain from doing, giving, or making, or the like; to covenant; to engage; as, to promise a visit; to promise a cessation of hostilities; to promise the payment of money. "To promise aid."
2.
To afford reason to expect; to cause hope or assurance of; as, the clouds promise rain.
3.
To make declaration of or give assurance of, as some benefit to be conferred; to pledge or engage to bestow; as, the proprietors promised large tracts of land; the city promised a reward.
Promised land. See Land of promise, under Land.
To promise one's self.
(a)
To resolve; to determine; to vow.
(b)
To be assured; to have strong confidence. "I dare promise myself you will attest the truth of all I have advanced."


Promise  v. i.  
1.
To give assurance by a promise, or binding declaration.
2.
To afford hopes or expectation; to give ground to expect good; rarely, to give reason to expect evil. "Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion? I fear it, I promise you."


adjective
Promise  adj.  
1.
In general, a declaration, written or verbal, made by one person to another, which binds the person who makes it to do, or to forbear to do, a specified act; a declaration which gives to the person to whom it is made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act. "For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise."
2.
(Law) An engagement by one person to another, either in words or in writing, but properly not under seal, for the performance or nonperformance of some particular thing. The word promise is used to denote the mere engagement of a person, without regard to the consideration for it, or the corresponding duty of the party to whom it is made.
3.
That which causes hope, expectation, or assurance; especially, that which affords expectation of future distinction; as, a youth of great promise. "My native country was full of youthful promise."
4.
Bestowal, fulfillment, or grant of what is promised. "He... commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Promise" Quotes from Famous Books



... The first thing he did was to take all Mary's jewelry and clothes out of pawn, and then to arrange for her to live. He promised to come back, and marry her, and some sort of such promise was made by his father's agents. He begged her to go home, but she would not. Then he put her to lodge with a small middle-class woman whom he bribed to give Mary a character as a servant, for he declared he would remain, and ruin himself for ever, if she neither would go home, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... very intellectual enterprise makes it difficult for them to become the efficient machines that men are. But part of it is also due to the fact that, with marriage always before them, coloring their every vision of the future, and holding out a steady promise of swift and complete relief, they are under no such implacable pressure as men are to acquire the sordid arts they revolt against. The time is too short and the incentive too feeble. Before the woman employee of twenty-one can master ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... native of the Rufus named And-buck, to go as guide and interpreter to the Darling. The latter native had accompanied me to Laidley's Ponds in December 1843, and had come down to Moorunde, according to a promise he then made me, to visit me in the winter, and go again with me up the Darling, if I wished it. At Laidley's Ponds I found the natives very friendly and well conducted, and one of them, a young man named Topar, was of such an open intelligent ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... allurements do not take place, for [5167]Simierus, that great master of dalliance, shall not behave himself better, the more effectually to move others, and satisfy their lust, they will swear and lie, promise, protest, forge, counterfeit, brag, bribe, flatter and dissemble of all sides. 'Twas Lucretia's counsel in Aretine, Si vis amica frui, promitte, finge, jura, perjura, jacta, simula, mentire; and they put it well in practice, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... married, some time, to a young man who lived over there. I inferred that the marriage was to take place whenever the ghostly tenants of the house would give their consent. She revealed to me, under promise of strict secrecy, the young man's ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom


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