/pay"sheuhns/ , n.
1. the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.
2. an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner.
3. quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience.
4. Cards. Chiefly Brit. solitaire (def. 1).
5. Also called patience dock . a European dock, Rumex patientia, of the buckwheat family, whose leaves are often used as a vegetable.
6. Obs. leave; permission; sufference.
[ 1175-1225; ME pacience patientia. See PATIENT, -ENCE ]
Syn. 1. composure, stability, self-possession; submissiveness, sufferance. PATIENCE, ENDURANCE, FORTITUDE, STOICISM imply qualities of calmness, stability, and persistent courage in trying circumstances. PATIENCE may denote calm, self-possessed, and unrepining bearing of pain, misfortune, annoyance, or delay; or painstaking and untiring industry or (less often) application in the doing of somehing: to bear afflictions with patience.
ENDURANCE denotes the ability to bear exertion, hardship, or suffering (without implication of moral qualities required or shown): Running in a marathon requires great endurance. FORTITUDE implies not only patience but courage and strength of character in the midst of pain, affliction, or hardship: to show fortitude in adversity. STOICISM is calm fortitude, with such repression of emotion as to seem almost like indifference to pleasure or pain: The American Indians were noted for stoicism under torture. 3. indefatigability, persistence, assiduity.