patience
- 1The quality of being patient; the ability to endure waiting, delay, or provocation calmly and without complaint.
Learning a musical instrument requires patience and steady daily practice.
Her patience with difficult customers earned her a reputation as the calmest person on the team.
Similarrestraint, forbearance
Oppositeimpatience
Note
Behind the calm lies suffering. Latin patientia meant "suffering, endurance," from patior, "to suffer, experience, wait," and ultimately from a root meaning "to hurt." The word came through Old French and displaced native Old English ġeþyld. Its core is bearing something, with waiting as one form of that. Forbearance and restraint stress holding back rather than bearing up. The old synonym thole is now obsolete, and the plain opposite is impatience.
- 2Any of various card games designed to be played by a single person, known in the US and Canada as solitaire.
He passed the long train ride with a game of patience on the tray table.
My aunt deals herself a hand of patience every evening before bed.
Similarsolitaire
Note
One name for a whole family of one-player card games, and a name that divides English: in the US and Canada the same games are called solitaire. Like the name of a sport, it is usually uncountable. You play patience, or deal yourself a game or a hand of it. It covers many different games rather than one fixed set of rules.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English pacience, borrowed from Old French pacience, from Latin patientia ("suffering, endurance, patience"). This comes from patiens, the present participle of patior ("suffer, experience, wait"), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *peh₁- ("to hurt"). It replaced the native Old English word ġeþyld.