On Mon, 08 Jan 2018, Michael Stapelberg <[email protected]> wrote: > In the context of “pk4 - avail the Debian source package producing the > specified package”, I interpret “avail” as a shorter alternative to “make > available”.
Ah, yes, I see.
While the existence of the word "available" suggests such a meaning for
the word "avail", sadly English is not quite as predictable as that, and
avail does not actually mean that at all.
BTW avail apparently comes from the obsolete "vail" of Middle English,
meaning "to have value".
In my experience avail is only seen in very limited circumstances these
days (which suggests that it's on its way to obsolescence too):
1) followed by his/her/oneself, meaning something like make use of:
The thirsty man availed himself of the drinking fountain.
2) as part of "of/to no avail", meaning without success:
He attempted to fly by flapping his arms, to no avail.
I presume that available started out as meaning specifically "something
that one might avail oneself of", and has drifted a little to it's
current meaning since -- hence the confusion.
That being the case, you could perhaps use "obtain" or "provide" or just
"make the source available". I suppose "provision" might work too,
although it's a bit of an odd usage. "prepare" also might work.
HTH
Cheers, Phil.
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