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''indemnify'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''indemnify'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260331180822-00-⌔

indemnify - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

indemnify (third-person singular simple present indemnifies, present participle indemnifying, simple past and past participle indemnified)

  • To secure against loss or damage; to insure.
    • ✤ The states must at last engage to the merchants here that they will indemnify them from all that shall fall out.1
  • (chiefly law) To compensate or reimburse someone for some expense or injury.
    • ✤ The lender of a thing for use must indemnify the borrower for damage caused by defects or vices in it, which he knew at the time of lending, and concealed from the borrower.2

Verb

indemnify (third-person singular simple present indemnifies, present participle indemnifying, simple past and past participle indemnified)

  • (obsolete, rare) to hurt, to harm
    • ✤ He… did not belieue that his Maiestie by this occasion coulde any way be endemnified.3
    • ✤ What harme the Rhodians haue doone thee, that thou so much indemnifiest them?4

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ɪnˈdɛm.nɪ.faɪ/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Audio (Australian): 🔊

Etymology 1

From indemn (“unhurt”) +‎ -ify (forming verbs)5

Etymology 2

From in- (“into”) + damnify (“to injure; to wrong”), assimilated to indemn and indemnify (“secure against loss; compensate, reimburse”).

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1670, Sir William Temple, letter to Lord Arlington, in The Works of Sir William Temple, page 101: ↩

  2. 1906, Civil Code of the State of California, page 405: ↩

  3. 1583, Thomas Stocker’s translation of A tragicall historie of the troubles and ciuile warres of the lowe Countries, i. 63a ↩

  4. 1593, Thomas Lodge, Life & Death of William Long Beard, E ij ↩

  5. Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. “indemnify, v.”. Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1900. ↩

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Secondary

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