patience

¹

[ pey-shuhns ]

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.

   Synonyms: submissiveness, sufferance, self-possession, stability, composure

2. an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay:

   to have patience with a slow learner.

3. quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence:

   to work with patience.

   Synonyms: indefatigability, assiduity, persistence

4. Cards (chiefly British). solitaire ( def 1 ).
5. Also called patience dock. a European dock, Rumex patientia, of the buckwheat family, whose leaves are often used as a vegetable.
6. Obsolete. leave; permission; sufference.

Patience

²

[ pey-shuhns ]

noun

1. a female given name.

patience

/ ˈpeɪʃəns /

noun

1. tolerant and even-tempered perseverance
2. the capacity for calmly enduring pain, trying situations, etc
3. 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 equivalentsolitaire
4. obsolete.
   permission; sufferance

Other Words From

• super·patience noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of patience¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of patience¹

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

Idioms and Phrases

see try one's patience .

Synonym Study

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.

Example Sentences

Ramen dough is much drier than eggy pasta dough, requiring both muscle and patience to bring it together.

From Popular-Science

Along with good patience by Mahomes in delivering the ball and excellent execution by the offensive line, the play design gave running back Damien Williams a massive amount of open grass in a part of the field where space is rare.

From FiveThirtyEight

Think about all the traffic you could lose if over half of the visitors to your site leave simply because they don’t have the patience to stick around longer than three seconds for your site to load.

From Search Engine Watch

I needed an at-home solution, something I could turn to whenever the gnawing made me snap at my husband or lose patience with coworkers.

From Outside Online

Women make good khat sellers because of a unique set of entrepreneurial skills, including marketing, patience and scouting target markets such as places hosting festivities, says Koshin.

From Ozy

Pinker is not a self-appointed enforcer of arbitrary rules, and he has little patience for purists, prigs, and pedants.

From The Daily Beast

But why is it especially important for people with little patience?

From The Daily Beast

It took a special, meticulous kind of person to accomplish the undertaking, someone with brains, patience, and nerves of steel.

From The Daily Beast

“Consequently, nearly everyone with much expertise but little patience will avoid ed­iting Wikipedia,” Sanger lamented.

From The Daily Beast

Users also require the bandwidth and patience to download large files (Flames of War is nearly a gigabyte).

From The Daily Beast

Who is in a decrepit age, and that is in care about all things, and to the distrustful that loseth patience!

From Project Gutenberg

Who has patience for the recapitulation of a string of names, when a group of faces may be placed simultaneously before him?

From Project Gutenberg

In a statuesque attitude, she sat, like Marius on the ruins of Carthage, or Patience on a monument smiling at grief.

From Project Gutenberg

This imputation on his son was too much for the small remnant of patience that remained to the Duke.

From Project Gutenberg

"I thought he had great patience with his brother," offered Edna, glad to be talking about Robert, no matter what was said.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• composure
• diligence
• endurance
• fortitude
• grit
• humility
• moderation
• perseverance
• persistence
• poise
• restraint
• self-control
• tolerance