forfend

****************************************************************
Decorate your game boards this season with new words from
The Official SCRABBLE(R) Players Dictionary, Fourth Edition!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?scrabdic.htm&3
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for December 15 is:

forfend   \for-FEND\   verb 
    *1 : to ward off : prevent 
     2 : protect, preserve 

Example sentence: 
     My roommate claims that the best way to forfend a nasty cold is to chew 
garlic.

Did you know? 
     "Heaven forfend if you don't treat the restaurant critic well--she'll cost 
you points if she leaves unhappy," wrote Peter Cohen in an October 2005 issue 
of _Macworld_, using an old meaning of "forfend" in the process. English 
speakers have been using "forfend" with the meanings "to forbid" and "to 
prevent" since the late 14th century (and the meaning "to protect" since the 
late 16th century). These days, however, the "forbid" sense is considered 
archaic; we only use it, as Cohen did, in the phrase "heaven forfend," which 
harks back to the days of yore. "Forfend" comes from "for-" (an old prefix 
meaning "so as to involve prohibition, exclusion, omission, failure, neglect, 
or refusal") and Middle English "fenden" (a shorter variant of "defenden," 
meaning "to defend"). 

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.