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guarantee

Definition

  • noun: a usually written promise
  • noun: an assurance for the fulfillment of a condition
  • verb: to undertake to answer for the debt, default, or miscarriage of
  • verb: to make a usually written promise that whatever you are selling, doing, etc., is what you say it is
  • often used in negative constructions
  • synonyms: bible oath, agree, and candle

Examples

  • The software comes with a 'money-back guarantee'. [=a promise that the money you spend on a product will be returned if the product is not good enough]

  • We used our house as a 'guarantee' for the loan. [=we said that the bank could take our house if we did not pay back the loan]

  • There is no 'guarantee' that they will approve the contract. [=there is no way to be sure that they will approve it]

Movie quotes

  • (..) I'd like a little pin from the Pope. Sure, I take the Blacks and the Spanish into my family, because that's America. And you guarantee that they don't deal drugs? I don't guarantee that. I guarantee that I'll kill anybody who does. - Let me talk to him. - Who can refuse Don Altobello? (..)
    1990 The Godfather Part III