Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of sustaining: sustainment.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun R. or Colloq. Sustentation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun sustentation

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

First attested in 1868: a nominalisation of sustain, by analogy with detaindetention, retainretention, etc., coined for contradistinction with sustentation.

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Examples

  • And from Jardine, Matheson & Co., a chief importer of the drug, came this statement: “The use of opium is not a curse but a comfort to the hard-working Chinese; to many scores of thousands it has been productive of healthful sustention and enjoyment.”

    The Last Empress Hannah Pakula 2009

  • It came out of a project called Project Paper Clip, in which -- and this is what Eisenhower warned us against -- the sustention of the military industrial complex.

    CNN Transcript Mar 30, 2008 2008

  • It came out of a project called Project Paper Clip, in which -- and this is what Eisenhower warned us against -- the sustention of the military industrial complex.

    CNN Transcript Nov 9, 2007 2007

  • That means the Army is withholding payment on just 3.8 percent of the charges questioned by the Pentagon audit agency, which is far below the rate at which the agency's recommendation is usually followed or sustained by the military Â? the so-called "sustention rate."

    02/27/2006 2006

  • Bewildered we search the sad sky, and our hope, our only sustention in this tragic hour is Beran, the brave new Panarch!

    The Languages of Pao Vance, Jack, 1916- 1958

  • I merely confess that to celebrate these rites so frequently requires a sustention of enthusiasm which is beyond me.

    Jurgen A Comedy of Justice James Branch Cabell 1918

  • Accuracy, verisimilitude, sustention, count for nothing in comparison with imaginative adroitness and variety.

    Diderot and the Encyclopaedists Morley, John, 1838-1923 1905

  • Being in derogation of natural right, it was peculiarly dependent upon artificial sustention; the South would not express the condition in this language, but acted upon the idea none the less.

    Abraham Lincoln Morse, John T 1899

  • Accuracy, verisimilitude, sustention, count for nothing in comparison with imaginative adroitness and variety.

    Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol 1 of 2) John Morley 1880

  • It is to be frankly admitted that the South commenced the war with financial advantages which the North did not have -- that is, without reference to commercial incidents of the blockade, but with respect to the sustention of its credit at home.

    The Rival Administrations: Richmond and Washington in December, 1863. 1863

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