Today, the word Providence is commonly associated with either the capital of Rhode Island or the concept of “divine care” in a religious context. However, its origins date back to the 1382 Wycliffe Bible, where it was used to mean “foresight”. It wasn’t until the beginning of the seventeenth century that it took on its ecclesiastical meaning, suggesting God’s foresight guiding individuals. The term is derived from the Latin providentia, which is formed from the verb providere, meaning “to see ahead”. The prefix pro-, signifying “ahead”, comes from the Proto-Indo-European root per-, which means “before”. The root videre is the source of various sight-related words like voila, visage, visor, visible, visa, view, and more. This root originates from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction weid, also meaning “see”.
