English
patient
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈpeɪʃənt/
Adjective

patient (comparative patienter, superlative patientest)

  1. (of a person) Willing to wait if necessary; not losing one's temper while waiting.
    Be patient: your friends will arrive in a few hours.
  2. Constant in pursuit or exertion; persevering; calmly diligent.
    patient endeavour
    • December 15, 2016, Hettie Judah in the New York Times, Beloved Children’s-Book Characters, in Their Own Immersive World ↗
      “Her personal life and her art were very intertwined: You can’t really separate them,” explains Sophia Jansson. “She mirrored her own a reality onto a fictional reality.” And this is perhaps the nub of the Moomin’s enduring appeal: a combination of adventuresome spirit and philosophy, all of which Jansson derived from close and patient observation, of human relationships and of the natural world alike.
    • Sir Isaac Newton (1642/1643 - 1727)
      Whatever I have done is due to patient thought.
  3. (obsolete) Physically able to suffer or bear.
    • 1661, John Fell (bishop), Doctor Henry Hammond, 1810, Christopher Wordsworth (Trinity) (editor), Ecclesiastical Biography, Volume 5, page 380 ↗,
      To this outward structure was joined that strength of constitution, patient of severest toil and hardship; insomuch that for the most part of his life, in the fiercest extremity of cold, he took no other advantage of a fire, than at the greatest distance that he could, to look upon it.
Synonyms Antonyms Related terms Translations Noun

patient (plural patients)

  1. A person or animal who receives treatment from a doctor or other medically educated person.
  2. (linguistics, grammar) The noun or noun phrase that is semantically on the receiving end of a verb's action.
    The subject of a passive verb is usually a patient.
  3. One who, or that which, is passively affected; a passive recipient.
    • c. 1658, Dr. Henry More, Government of the Tongue
      Malice is a passion so impetuous and precipitate, that it often involves the agent and the patient.
Antonyms
  • (linguistics, grammar) agent
Translations Translations

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