patience

[ pey-shuhns ]
See synonyms for patience on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

  2. an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner.

  1. quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience.

  2. Cards (chiefly British). solitaire (def. 1).

  3. Also called patience dock . a European dock, Rumex patientia, of the buckwheat family, whose leaves are often used as a vegetable.

  4. Obsolete. leave; permission; sufference.

Origin of patience

1
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English pacience, from Old French, from Latin patientia.See patient, -ence

synonym study For patience

1. Patience, endurance, fortitude, stoicism imply qualities of calmness, stability, and persistent courage in trying circumstances. Patience may denote calm, self-possessed, and unrepining bearing of pain, misfortune, annoyance, or delay; or painstaking and untiring industry or (less often) application in the doing of somehing: to bear afflictions with patience. Endurance denotes the ability to bear exertion, hardship, or suffering (without implication of moral qualities required or shown): Running in a marathon requires great endurance. Fortitude implies not only patience but courage and strength of character in the midst of pain, affliction, or hardship: to show fortitude in adversity. Stoicism is calm fortitude, with such repression of emotion as to seem almost like indifference to pleasure or pain: The American Indians were noted for stoicism under torture.

Other words for patience

Other words from patience

  • su·per·pa·tience, noun

Words Nearby patience

Other definitions for Patience (2 of 2)

Patience
[ pey-shuhns ]

noun
  1. a female given name.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use patience in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for patience

patience

/ (ˈpeɪʃəns) /


noun
  1. tolerant and even-tempered perseverance

  2. the capacity for calmly enduring pain, trying situations, etc

  1. mainly British any of various card games for one player only, in which the cards may be laid out in various combinations as the player tries to use up the whole pack: US equivalent: solitaire

  2. obsolete permission; sufferance

Origin of patience

1
C13: via Old French from Latin patientia endurance, from patī to suffer

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with patience

patience

see try one's patience.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.