DictionaryAI

suspend

verb
USsuh-SPEND/səsˈpɛnd/

Formssuspends, suspending, suspended

9 meanings of suspend

Practice

  1. 1
    verbtransitive
    To halt an activity or process for a time, with the intention of resuming it later.

    The referee suspended play when the rain became too heavy.

    Lawmakers voted to suspend the new rule while they studied its effects.

    Similarhalt, pause, stop, interrupt, postpone

    Oppositeresume, continue

    Note

    The everyday sense, from Old French sospendre and Latin suspendere, and it has never been limited to meetings and services. Shakespeare's King Lear asks a listener to suspend indignation, and John Denham in 1636 has the nearness of fate suspend a guard's courage and fear at once. Feelings can be paused too. Reports reach for the passive, as when the Railway Magazine of 1940 found ferry services completely suspended for a month.

  2. 2
    verbtransitive
    To break off or interrupt an ongoing function, task, role, or event.

    The board voted to suspend trading after the sharp drop in prices.

    The system suspends background tasks when the battery runs low.

    Similarhalt, interrupt, stop, pause, freeze

    Oppositeresume, restart

  3. 3
    verbtransitive
    To bar someone temporarily from a privilege, office, or source of income, usually as a penalty.

    The league voted to suspend the player for three games.

    Authorities suspended the doctor's license pending an investigation.

    Similarban, bar

    Oppositereinstate, restore

    Note

    Here the object is a person, not an activity: a student is suspended from college, a member from a club. The construction is suspend someone from something, and the something can be duties as well as places. Robert Sanderson in 1633 asks whether good men should be suspended from the exercise of their ministry and deprived of their livelihood. The temporary bar sits beside the loss of income it brought.

  4. 4
    verbtransitive
    To hang something freely so that it dangles from above with nothing supporting it below.

    Workers suspend the bridge deck from massive steel cables.

    The artist suspended dozens of paper birds from the gallery ceiling.

    Similarhang, dangle, sling

  5. 5
    verbtransitive
    To keep something in an unsettled or undecided state, neither resolved nor dismissed.

    Good readers suspend disbelief to enjoy a fantasy novel.

    She suspended judgment until all the facts were in.

    Similarreserve, defer, withhold

    Note

    Here what is held back is a decision rather than an activity. John Locke writes of suspending judgment in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (1689), and judgment remains its natural object. Unlike the plain "halt" sense, nothing has to stop and start again. The mind simply leaves the question open, neither accepting nor rejecting it.

  6. 6
    verbtransitive
    To disperse a solid, usually a powder, throughout a liquid so its particles stay distributed rather than settling.

    Manufacturers suspend pigment in the base to give the paint its color.

    The technician suspended the powdered drug in a sterile solution.

    Similardisperse

  7. 7
    verbtransitive
    To keep an insoluble powder dispersed through a liquid by stirring, in order to assist a chemical reaction.

    Chemists suspend the insoluble reagent by stirring it continuously during the process.

    She suspended the metal powder in the acid, stirring to speed the reaction.

    Similardisperse

    Note

    A laboratory refinement of the general "disperse a powder" sense. The powder is insoluble, so it will never dissolve, and stirring is what keeps it spread through the liquid. The point is not the mixture itself but the chemical reaction, which the stirring helps along by keeping the solid distributed rather than letting it settle.

  8. 8
    verbtransitive
    To void the value of an unused coupon on an air ticket, typically to permit travel on the following segments.

    The airline agreed to suspend the coupon so the passenger could continue to the final destination.

    Staff suspended the unused sector and reissued the onward portion of the ticket.

    Similarvoid

    Note

    Airline ticketing jargon, in which a ticket is made up of coupons covering its sectors. The object is a coupon, not a flight or a passenger. Suspending an unused coupon strips its value so that travel on the following sectors can continue. It should not be confused with suspending a flight, which is the ordinary "halt" sense.

Less common meaning

  1. 9
    verbobsolete
    To cause one thing to depend or be contingent upon another.

    Ancient writers would suspend the soul's fate upon the conduct of one's life.

    God hath all along in the Scripture suspended the promise of eternal life on the condition of obedience and holiness of life.
    1671, John Tillotson, The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson
    Note

    A figurative hanging: a result is pictured dangling from a condition, as a weight hangs in the literal 'hang freely' sense. It takes on or upon plus the condition. John Tillotson in 1671 has God suspending the promise of eternal life on the condition of obedience. Now obsolete, it survives only in older prose; in modern writing, say that something depends or hinges on a condition.

Practice

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Origin

From Old French "sospendre", which comes from Latin "suspendere".