- abide
- O.E. abidan, gebidan "remain," from ge- completive prefix (denoting onward motion; see a- (1)) + bidan "bide, remain, wait, dwell" (see bide). Originally intransitive (with genitive of the object: we abidon his "we waited for him"); transitive sense emerged in M.E. Meaning "to put up with" (now usually negative) first recorded 1520s. The historical conjugation is abide, abode, abidden, but the modern formation is now generally weak.