different between sustain vs connive

English

Etymology

From Middle English susteinen, sustenen, from Old French sustenir (French soutenir), from Latin sustine?, sustin?re (“to uphold”), from sub- (“from below, up”) + tene? (“hold”, verb).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s??ste?n/
• Hyphenation: sus?tain
• Rhymes: -e?n

Verb

sustain (third-person singular simple present sustains, present participle sustaining, simple past and past participle sustained)

1. (transitive) To maintain, or keep in existence.

   The professor had trouble sustaining students’ interest until the end of her lectures.

   The city came under sustained attack by enemy forces.

   • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part Two, Chapter 9,^[1]

     All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived.

2. (transitive) To provide for or nourish.

   provisions to sustain an army

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Nehemiah 9:21,^[2]

     Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.

   • 1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part 2, p. 59,^[3]

     We rode five farsakhs today, sustained by a single bowl of curds and tortured by the wooden saddles.

3. (transitive) To encourage or sanction (something). (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)
4. (transitive) To experience or suffer (an injury, etc.).

   The building sustained major damage in the earthquake.

   • c. 1612, William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, Henry VIII, Act III, Scene 2,^[4]

     […] if you omit

     The offer of this time, I cannot promise

     But that you shall sustain moe new disgraces,

     With these you bear already.

   • 1697, John Dryden (translator), The Aeneid, Book 7, lines 592-593, in The Works of Virgil, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 418,^[5]

     Shall Turnus then such endless Toil sustain,

     In fighting Fields, and conquer Towns in vain:

5. (transitive) To confirm, prove, or corroborate; to uphold.

   to sustain a charge, an accusation, or a proposition

   • 1876, Henry Martyn Robert, Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies, Chicago: Griggs, 1885, Section 61 (e), p. 167,^[6]

     After the vote is taken, the Chairman states that the decision of the Chair is sustained, or reversed, as the case may be.

6. To keep from falling; to bear; to uphold; to support.

   A foundation sustains the superstructure; an animal sustains a load; a rope sustains a weight.

7. To aid, comfort, or relieve; to vindicate.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act III, Scene 3,^[7]

     When I desir’d their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house, charg’d me on pain of perpetual displeasure neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

   • 1697, John Dryden (translator), The Aeneid, Book 6, lines 1122-1123, in The Works of Virgil, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 395,^[8]

     His Sons, who seek the Tyrant to sustain,

     And long for Arbitrary Lords again,

Derived terms

• sustainable
• sustainedly
• sustaining

Related terms

Translations

Noun

sustain (plural sustains)

1. (music) A mechanism which can be used to hold a note, as the right pedal on a piano.
   • 2011, Chuck Eddy, Rock and Roll Always Forgets (page 265)

     To call this music bland is to ignore the down-the-drain vocal fade-aways, the extended sax sustains […]

Anagrams

• issuant

English

Etymology

From French conniver (“to ignore and thus become complicit in wrongdoing”), or directly from its etymon Latin conn?v?re, c?n?v?re, third-person plural perfect active indicative of conn?ve?, c?n?ve? (“to close or screw up the eyes, blink, wink; to overlook, turn a blind eye, connive”) (perhaps alluding to two persons involved in a scheme together winking to each other), from con- (prefix indicating a being or bringing together of several objects) + *n?v?re (related to nict? (“to blink, wink”), from Proto-Indo-European *kneyg??- (“to bend, droop”)).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /k??na?v/
• Rhymes: -a?v
• Hyphenation: con?nive

Verb

connive (third-person singular simple present connives, present participle conniving, simple past and past participle connived)

1. (intransitive) To secretly cooperate with other people in order to commit a crime or other wrongdoing; to collude, to conspire. [from mid 17th c.]
2. (intransitive, botany, rare) Of parts of a plant: to be converging or in close contact; to be connivent.
3. (intransitive, obsolete) Often followed by at: to pretend to be ignorant of something in order to escape blame; to ignore or overlook a fault deliberately.

   Synonyms: (rare) dissimulate, look the other way, shut one's eyes, turn a blind eye, wink
4. (intransitive, obsolete) To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink.

Conjugation

Derived terms

Related terms

• connivance
• connivent
• nictate

Translations

References

Latin

Verb

conn?v?

1. second-person singular present active imperative of conn?ve?