patience

nouncommon in dialogue

Canada//ˈpeɪ̯.ʃəns//
Australia//ˈpæɪ̯.ʃəns//
Scotland//ˈpe.ʃəns//

The quality of being patient.

noun

1
The quality of being patient.
Musical perfection requires practice and a lot of patience.
I appreciate the patience with which you've explained it.
The most surprising thing was to discover that each job had its little tricks, peculiarities that had been learned in the experience of years, and one of the really pleasing features was the unlimited patience and kindliness of the chargehands and fitters, who would go to great lengths to teach the budding engineer all they themselves knew.
2
Any of various card games that can be played by one person.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English pacience, from Old French pacience (modern French patience), from Latin patientia (“suffering; endurance, patience”), from patiens, present active participle of patior (“suffer, experience, wait”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₁- (“to hurt”). Displaced Old English ġeþyld.

Forms

plural: patiences

pathological · Pertaining to pathology.pathologist · An expert in pathology; a specialist who examines samples of…pathology · The study of the nature of disease and its causes, processes,…

patience · The quality of being patient.

Patience · A female given name from English.patient · Willing to wait if necessary; not losing one's temper while…Patient · A surname.

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.