forbearance

From forbear +‎ -ance.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fɔːˈbɛː.ɹən(t)s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /fɔɹˈbɛɹ.ən(t)s/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /foːˈbeə.ɹən(t)s/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /foːˈbiəɹɘn(t)s/

forbearance (countable and uncountable, plural forbearances)

1. Patient self-control; restraint and tolerance under provocation.
   • 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter III, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume II, London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC, pages 63–64:

     Though I would give no information, he discovered, through some of the other servants, both her place of residence, and the existence of the child. Still he didn’t molest her; for which forbearance she might thank his aversion, I suppose.

   • 2010 August 3, David Bennun, Tick Bite Fever‎^[1], Random House, page 109:

     I WOULD HAVE been nine or ten when my mother chased me up a thorn tree with a ceremonial hippo-hide whip. What my crime was, I forget. My mother was, and remains, a woman of exceptional forbearance. I must have done something so obnoxious as to beggar belief.

2. A refraining from the enforcement of something (as a debt, right, or obligation) that is due.

• (debt cancellation): deferment

• forbear

• forbearance on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “forbearance”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “forbearance”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “forbearance”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.