Definition of "sustain"

sustain

/səˈsteɪn/

verb
third-person singular simple present sustains, present participle sustaining, simple past and past participle sustained
1. (transitive) To maintain, or keep in existence.
  Quotations
  All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived.
  1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 9, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001
2. (transitive) To provide for or nourish.
  Quotations
  Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Nehemiah 9:21
  We rode five farsakhs today, sustained by a single bowl of curds and tortured by the wooden saddles.
  1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana‎, London: Macmillan, Part 2, page 59
3. (transitive) To encourage or sanction (something). (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)
4. (transitive) To experience or suffer (an injury, etc.).
  Quotations
  […] if you omitThe offer of this time, I cannot promiseBut that you shall sustain moe new disgraces,With these you bear already.
  1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene ii]
  Shall Turnus then such endless Toil sustain,In fighting Fields, and conquer Towns in vain:
  1697, Virgil, “The Seventh Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], lines 592-593
5. (transitive) To confirm, prove, or corroborate; to uphold.
  Quotations
  After the vote is taken, the Chairman states that the decision of the Chair is sustained, or reversed, as the case may be.
  1876, Henry Martyn Robert, Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies‎, Chicago: Griggs, published 1885, Section 61 (e), page 167
6. (law, of a judge) To allow, accept, or admit (e.g. an objection or motion) as valid.
7. To keep from falling; to bear; to uphold; to support.
8. To aid, comfort, or relieve; to vindicate.
  Quotations
  When I desir’d their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house, charg’d me on pain of perpetual displeasure neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.
  c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene iii]
  His Sons, who seek the Tyrant to sustain,And long for Arbitrary Lords again,
  1697, Virgil, “The Sixth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], lines 1122-1123
noun
plural sustains
1. (music) A mechanism which can be used to hold a note, as the right pedal on a piano.
  Quotations
  To call this music bland is to ignore the down-the-drain vocal fade-aways, the extended sax sustains […]
  2011, Chuck Eddy, Rock and Roll Always Forgets, page 265

Definition of "sustain"

sustain

verb

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noun

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