subsistence

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One notes this phenomenon especially in tribes which on account of the favorable character of their environment, or because their subsistence is assured and abundant, become of the industrial or peaceful type.

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Definitions (17)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. noun The act or state of subsisting.
  2. noun A means of subsisting, especially means barely sufficient to maintain life.
  3. noun Something that has real or substantial existence.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (9)

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

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Examples (50)

  • Although the Revolutionary soldier had thus betaken himself to the wilderness for a subsistence, his professional merits were not forgotten by those who had witnessed his military career. —  Sketches and Studies
  • His intention might have been supposed to be that of reducing me to a dependence upon him and his credit for a subsistence, and to cut off the latter until I was brought to that degree of distress All things considered, my reason imposed silence upon my former prejudice, which still pleaded in his favor. —  The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Entire
  • All her subsistence was a little unpleasant and disagreeable broth, which I forced her to take against her will. —  AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON
  • Progress in the means of subsistence, that is to say, progress in abundance and variety of food-supply, clothing, shelter, sanitation, public health, commerce, manufacture, the growth of the public wealth, etc. 2nd. Progress in government and law, that is to say, in the enactment of laws securing justice and equity to every man, consistent with the largest individual liberty, and the due and orderly enforcement of the same upon all. —  Random Reminiscences of Men and Events
  • The manner of their settlement and providing for their subsistence is described in a succeeding chapter Other bands of Loyalists made their way to Canada by land; some by the military highway to Lower Canada, Whitehall, Lake Champlain, Ticonderoga, Plattsburg, and then turning northward proceeded to Cornwall; then ascending the St. Lawrence, along the north side of which many of them settled. —  The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 From 1620-1816
 

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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 (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French subsistance = Spanish Portuguese subsistencia = Italian sussistenza, from Late Latin subsistentia, substance, reality, Middle Latin also stability, from Latin subsisten(t-)s, present participle of subsistere, continue, subsist: see subsistent.
 

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/səbˈsɪstəns/
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