Word Direct Answers

What does "sustain" mean?

Sustain: Hence, to keep from sinking, as in despondence, or the like; to support. No comfortable expectations of another life to sustain him under the evils in this world. Tillotson.

Additional senses

  1. 2.To maintain; to keep alive; to support; to subsist; to nourish; as, provisions to sustain an army.
  2. 3.To aid, comfort, or relieve; to vindicate. Shak. His sons, who seek the tyrant to sustain. Dryden.
  3. 4.To endure without failing or yielding; to bear up under; as, to sustain defeat and disappointment.
  4. 5.To suffer; to bear; to undergo. Shall Turnus, then, such endless toil sustain Dryden. You shall sustain more new disgraces. Shak.
  5. 6.To allow the prosecution of; to admit as valid; to sanction; to continue; not to dismiss or abate; as, the court sustained the action or suit.
  6. 7.To prove; to establish by evidence; to corroborate or confirm; to be conclusive of; as, to sustain a charge, an accusation, or a proposition.
  7. 8.One who, or that which, upholds or sustains; a sustainer. [Obs.] I waked again, for my sustain was the Lord. Milton.

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