Adjacent Words

Forbearance definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FORBEARANCE, n.
1. The act of avoiding, shunning or omitting; either the cessation or intermission of an act commenced, or a withholding from beginning an act. Liberty is the power of doing or forbearing an action, according as the doing or forbearance has a preference in the mind. The forbearance of sin is followed with satisfaction of mind.
2. Command of temper; restraint of passions.
3. The exercise of patience; long suffering; indulgence towards those who injure us; lenity; delay of resentment or punishment.
Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long suffering? Romans 2.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence [syn: patience, forbearance, longanimity] [ant: impatience]
2: a delay in enforcing rights or claims or privileges; refraining from acting; "his forbearance to reply was alarming"

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1576 1. a refraining from the enforcement of something (as a debt, right, or obligation) that is due 2. the act of forbearing ; patience 3. the quality of being forbearing ; leniency

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. patient self-control; tolerance.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Forbearance For*bear"ance, n. The act of forbearing or waiting; the exercise of patience. He soon shall findForbearance no acquittance ere day end. --Milton. 2. The quality of being forbearing; indulgence toward offenders or enemies; long-suffering. Have a continent forbearance, till the speed of his rage goe? slower. --Shak. Syn: Abstinence; refraining; lenity; mildness.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you say that someone has shown forbearance, you admire them for behaving in a calm and sensible way about something that they have a right to be very upset or angry about. (FORMAL) All the Greenpeace people behaved with impressive forbearance and dignity. [approval]

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

for-bar'-ans (anoche):

"Forbearance" (anoche, "a holding back") is ascribed to God (Ro 2:4, "the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering"; 3:25 the Revised Version (British and American), "the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God," the King James Version "remission" (margin "passing over") of sins, that are past, through the forbearance of God"); in Php 4:5, to epieikes is translated by the Revised Version (British and American) "forbearance," margin "gentleness"; it is a Christian grace in likeness to God. "Forbearing" (The King James Version, margin) is substituted by the Revised Version (British and American) for "patient" (anexikakos, "holding up under evil") in 2Ti 2:24.

W. L. Walker

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Forbearing, shunning, abstinence, avoidance. 2. Patience, lenity, indulgence, long-suffering, command of temper.

Foolish Dictionary

The spirit of toleration shown when a man who knows, patiently listens to a fool who does not.

Moby Thesaurus

abandonment, abeyance, abjuration, abjurement, abnegation, acceptance, avoidance, avoiding reaction, benevolence, cessation, charitableness, charity, circumvention, clemency, clementness, cold storage, commiseration, compassion, condolence, condonation, constraint, defense mechanism, denial, desistance, discontinuance, disregard, dodge, duck, easiness, easygoingness, elusion, elusiveness, endurance, equivocation, escape, evasion, evasive action, evasiveness, favor, feeling, forbearing, forbearingness, forestalling, forestallment, forgiveness, forgivingness, fortitude, frugality, generousness, gentleness, getting around, golden mean, grace, humaneness, humanity, indulgence, jink, kindness, laxness, lenience, leniency, lenientness, lenity, long-sufferance, long-suffering, longanimity, magnanimity, mercifulness, mercy, mildness, mitigation, moderateness, moderation, neutrality, nonexercise, nonintervention, noninvolvement, nothing in excess, overlooking, pardon, pathos, patience, patience of Job, patientness, permissiveness, perseverance, pity, prevention, quarter, refraining, relief, relinquishment, renouncement, renunciation, reprieve, resignation, restraint, ruth, self-control, self-denial, self-discipline, self-mastery, self-pity, self-restraint, shunning, shunting off, shy, sidestep, sidetracking, slip, soberness, sobriety, softness, sophrosyne, stoicism, sufferance, suspension, sweet reasonableness, sympathy, temperance, temperateness, tenderness, the runaround, thoughtful, tolerance, toleration, uncomplainingness, unrevengefulness, waiting game, waiting it out, waiver, zigzag