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FORBEARANCE
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A delay in enforcing rights or claims or privileges; refraining from acting
Example:
his forbearance to reply was alarming
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("forbearance" is a kind of...):
delay; holdup (the act of delaying; inactivity resulting in something being put off until a later time)
Derivation:
forbear (resist doing something)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence
Synonyms:
forbearance; longanimity; patience
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("forbearance" is a kind of...):
good nature (a cheerful, obliging disposition)
Context examples:
Attendance, forbearance, patience with Darcy, was injury to Wickham.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Did I imitate your forbearance, or lessen your restraints, by taking any part in those offices of general complaisance or particular gratitude which you had hitherto been left to discharge alone?
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
She could do little more than listen patiently, soften every grievance, and excuse each to the other; give them all hints of the forbearance necessary between such near neighbours, and make those hints broadest which were meant for her sister's benefit.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment: you have had to seek no one's company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Her sensibilities, I suspect, are strong—and her temper excellent in its power of forbearance, patience, self-control; but it wants openness.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Miss Crawford's kind opinion of herself deserved at least a grateful forbearance, and she began to talk of something else.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Mrs. Phillips's vulgarity was another, and perhaps a greater, tax on his forbearance; and though Mrs. Phillips, as well as her sister, stood in too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley's good humour encouraged, yet, whenever she did speak, she must be vulgar.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
She could consult with her brother, could receive her sister-in-law on her arrival, and treat her with proper attention; and could strive to rouse her mother to similar exertion, and encourage her to similar forbearance.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Every feeling was offended; and the forbearance of her outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston's temper.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Was there one of the family, excepting Edmund, who had not in some way or other continually exercised her patience and forbearance?
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
