different between sustain vs lasting

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

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?læst??/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?l??st??/
• (æ-tensing) IPA^(key): /?le?st??/
• (Northern England) IPA^(key): /?last??/
• Rhymes: -??st??, -æst??
• Hyphenation: last?ing

Adjective

lasting (comparative more lasting, superlative most lasting)

1. Persisting for an extended period of time.

   Synonyms: abiding, durable; see also Thesaurus:lasting

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, Book 2, Canto 5, p. 249,^[1]

     […] hasty wroth, and heedlesse hazardry

     Doe breede repentaunce late, and lasting infamy.

   • 1706, Susanna Centlivre, Love at a Venture, London: John Chantry, Act V, p. 63,^[2]

     Look ye, Marriage is a lasting thing—if it were for six Months only, I might venture upon thee—but for all days of my Life—mercy upon me […]

   • 1823, Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto 11,^[3]

     I knew that nought was lasting, but now even

     Change grows too changeable, without being new:

   • 1931, Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth, New York: Modern Library, 1944, Chapter 34, p. 311,^[4]

     Then his son bought a carven coffin hewn from a great log of fragrant wood which is used to bury the dead in and for nothing else because that wood is as lasting as iron, and more lasting than human bones, and Wang Lung was comforted.
2. (obsolete) Persisting forever.

   Synonyms: eternal, everlasting; see also Thesaurus:eternal

   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, King John, Act 5, Scene 7,^[6]

     I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,

     Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,

     And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings

     His soul and body to their lasting rest.

   • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, London: Nath. Ponder, p. 24,^[7]

     Things that are first must give place, but things that are last, are lasting.

Derived terms

• lastingly
• lastingness

Translations

Verb

lasting

1. present participle of last

Noun

lasting (plural lastings)

1. (obsolete) The action or state of persisting; the time during which something or someone persists.

   Synonyms: continuance, duration, endurance

   • 1598, I. D. (possibly John Dee) (translator), Aristotles Politiques, or Discourses of Gouernment, London: Adam Islip, Chapter 12, p. 334,^[8]

     But all things that haue beginning, must come to an end, and whatsoeuer groweth, must likewise deminish, being subiect to corruption and change, according to the time appointed vnto it by the course of Nature, as is seene by experience in plants, and in wights, which haue their ages and lastings certaine and determined.

   • 1651, John Donne, Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, London: Richard Marriot, dedicatory epistle,^[9]

     […] it may be some kinde of Prophecy, of the continuance, and lasting of these Letters, that having been scattered, more then Sibyls leaves, I cannot say into parts, but corners of the World, they have recollected and united themselves […]

   • 1690, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, London: Thomas Basset, Book 2, Chapter 10, § 4, p. 65,^[10]

     But concerning the several degrees of lasting, wherewith Ideas are imprinted on the Memory, we may observe […]

2. A durable woollen material formerly used for women's shoes.

   Synonym: everlasting

3. The act or process of shaping footwear on a last.

Anagrams

• Gatlins, salting, slating, staling

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From laste +? -ing

Noun

lasting f or m (definite singular lastinga or lastingen, indefinite plural lastinger, definite plural lastingene)

1. loading (av / of)

Antonyms

• lossing

References

• “laste_2” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From laste +? -ing

Noun

lasting f (definite singular lastinga, indefinite plural lastingar, definite plural lastingane)

1. loading (av / of)

Antonyms

• lossing

References

• “lasting” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.