# suspension

Pronunciation: say "suh-SPEN-shuhn" /səˈspɛnʃən/

## Noun

1. The system of springs and shock absorbers connected to an automobile's wheels, allowing it to move smoothly with reduced shock to its occupants.
   - Simple: The set of springs and shock absorbers that connect a car's wheels to its body, giving a smoother ride.
   - _Mechanics replaced the worn suspension after the off-road trip._
   - _The truck's stiff suspension struggled on the potholed highway._
2. A temporary or conditional delay, interruption, or stopping of an activity or process.
   - Simple: A pause or stop in something that lasts only for a while or until a condition is met.
   - _The suspension of the bus service lasted only until the snow cleared._
   - _There was a brief suspension of trading after the market dropped sharply._
3. The temporary barring of a person from a workplace, club, or organization while alleged misconduct is investigated.
   - Simple: A time when someone is kept from work or a group while their actions are checked.
   - _The officer's suspension began the day the complaint was filed._
   - _Her suspension from the committee lasted until the inquiry ended._
4. The barring of a student from school grounds as a punishment, especially the out-of-school kind.
   - Simple: A punishment that keeps a student away from school for a set time.
   - _The student's suspension followed repeated violations of the code of conduct._
   - _Schools increasingly question whether suspension actually improves behavior._
5. The state of a solid whose particles are mixed into a fluid but not dissolved, remaining separable by straining.
   - Simple: A mix where tiny bits of a solid float in a liquid without melting into it, and can be strained out.
   - _The paint is a suspension of solid pigment particles in a liquid base._
   - _Over time the suspension settled, leaving clear liquid above the sediment._
6. The action of hanging or holding something up, or of halting it, or the resulting state.
   - Simple: The act of hanging something up, or the state of being hung or stopped.
   - _The suspension of the bridge deck from steel cables is an engineering feat._
   - _The acrobat's suspension above the stage drew gasps from the audience._
7. The prolonging of one or more tones of a chord into the following chord, creating a momentary discord before the expected harmony resolves.
   - Simple: In music, holding a note from one chord into the next, so it clashes for a moment before settling.
   - _The composer wrote a suspension over the bass to heighten the cadence._
   - _Listeners feel the pull of the suspension as it resolves downward by a step._
8. The act of holding a listener in doubt and expectation about what is to follow.
   - Simple: The act of keeping a listener unsure and eager about what will happen next.
   - _The speaker's deliberate pauses kept the audience in suspension until the final word._
   - _A skilled narrator sustains the suspension across an entire chapter._
9. A kind of silt or sludge consisting of fine solid matter held in a fluid.
   - Simple: Fine mud or sludge made of solid bits floating in water.
   - _Engineers measured the suspension in the runoff before it reached the reservoir._
   - _The tank's bottom was coated with a fine suspension of clay._
10. A stay or postponement of the execution of a court sentence, granted in Scots law on application to the Lord Ordinary.
   - Simple: In Scottish law, a delay or stop to carrying out a court sentence.
   - _Counsel sought a suspension to halt the diligence against their client._
   - _The Lord Ordinary granted the suspension pending a full hearing._
11. A topological space formed from another by taking its product with an interval and collapsing each end of the product to a single point.
   - Simple: In math, a new shape made by stretching a shape into a tube and pinching both ends to a point.
   - _The suspension of the n-sphere produces the (n+1)-sphere._
   - _Topologists compute homology groups using the suspension of a space._
12. A function derived in a standard way from another, whose domain and codomain are the suspensions of the original function's domain and codomain.
   - Simple: In math, a new function built from another so that its inputs and outputs are stretched shapes of the first one's.
   - _The suspension of a continuous map is itself continuous._
   - _Algebraic topologists study how the suspension of a function affects induced homomorphisms._

## Origin

Borrowed from Late Latin suspensiōnem ('arching, vaulting; suspension'), from suspendēre ('to hang up, to suspend'), which combines sub- ('under') with pendere ('to hang'). This traces back through Proto-Italic *pendō to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to pull; to spin', and it is related to Anglo-Norman suspensiun and French suspension.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/suspension (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).