abeyance

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“
'Ivanhoe' I had known before, and the 'Bride of Lammermoor' and 'Woodstock', but the rest had remained in that sort of abeyance which is often the fate of books people expect to read as a matter of course, and come very near not reading at all, or read only very late.

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Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun The condition of being temporarily set aside; suspension: held the plan in abeyance.
  2. noun Law A condition of undetermined ownership, as of an estate that has not yet been assigned.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • But now that the secret bond between them was held in abeyance, their intercourse sank within its former boundary. —  Olive A Novel
  • Until this offence has been expiated his relationship with the tiger as head of the clan is in abeyance, and the tiger will eat him as he would any other stranger. —  The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV)
  • A man's knowledge may be in abeyance, as it is when he is asleep or intoxicated. —  Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics
  • Where the struggle for own life is in abeyance, and the struggle for other life active, there the heart that God thought out and means to perfect, the pure love-heart of His humans, reveals itself truly, and is gracious to behold. —  Paul Faber, Surgeon
  • The arrival of his Grace of Ellswold's physicians held gossip in the castle in abeyance, as all were anxious of their decision; but the presence of Sir Julian seemed to fill the sails of the becalmed household with a stiff breeze, which at a favourable moment would raise anchor and fly forth on a joyous sea The physicians gave out that there was no immediate danger, but his illness was serious and there must neither be noise nor excitement. —  Mistress Penwick
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Anglo-Norman, variant of Old French abeance, desire, from abaer, to gape at : a-, at (from Latin ad-; see ad-) + baer, to gape; see bay2.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Old French abeiance, abeyance, from a- (from Latin ad-), to, at, + beance (*beiance), expectation, desire, from beant, expecting, thinking, present participle of beer, baer (French bayer), gape, gaze at, expect anxiously, from Middle Latin badare, gape.
 

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/əˈbeɪəns/
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