Meaning of patience in English

patience

/ˈpeɪ.ʃəns/ us

/ˈpeɪ.ʃəns/

patience noun [U] (QUALITY)

the ability to wait, or to continue doing something despite difficulties, or to suffer without complaining or becoming annoyed:

You have to have a lot of patience when you're dealing with kids.

lose your patience In the end I lost my patience and shouted at her.

patience with He's a good teacher, but he doesn't have much patience with the slower pupils.

take patience Making small-scale models takes a great deal of patience.

require patience Taking care of young children requires patience and stamina.

try someone's patience Their youngest son was beginning to try my patience (= annoy me).

test someone's patience It tests their patience (= annoys them) when you ignore their questions.

Patience - they'll be here soon!

Opposite

impatience

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

to get angry

lose your temperShe never lost her temper, never raised her voice.
explodeShe exploded with rage when she was mistaken for a cleaning lady.
eruptMy ex-husband would erupt over little things.
lose (your) patienceShe was starting to lose her patience with him.
become enragedHe became enraged and crashed out of the room.
fly into a rageI never saw him fly into a rage or treat anyone cruelly.

See more results »

More examplesFewer examples

I'm sorry but my patience is wearing thin.
My patience is beginning to run out.
He has the patience of a saint with those kids.
I'm afraid he's exhausted my patience.
He kept on crying and I lost my patience.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Patient and uncomplaining

See more results »

patience noun [U] (CARD GAME)

(US solitaire)

a game played with cards by one person

3bugsmom/iStock/Getty Images Plus/GettyImages

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Card games

See more results »

Idioms

have the patience of a saint

the patience of Job

(Definition of patience from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

patience | American Dictionary

patience

noun [ U ]

/ˈpeɪ·ʃəns/

Add to word list Add to word list

the ability to accept delay, suffering, or annoyance without complaining or becoming angry:

He’s a man of great patience.

Her constant complaining was beginning to test/try my patience.

patient

adjective us

/ˈpeɪ·ʃənt/

Just be patient – dinner’s almost ready.

patiently

adverb us

/ˈpeɪ·ʃənt·li/

He waited patiently for his name to be called.

(Definition of patience from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of patience

patience

This patience derives from understanding that the intervention will have little impact if it is forcibly imposed, an insight that develops during a speaker's life.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This is a book exhibiting great industry and immense patience with its subject matter, but it hardly excites.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

For example, application forms are not sent and not processed or processed with exceedingly long delays in the hope that the applicant loses patience.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In this article, we analyze the simplest abandonment model, assuming that the customer's patience is exponentially distributed.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Therefore, a theory of endogenous changes in patience is something different from a theory of marginal rates of substitution.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

But these indirect methods are often painstaking and limited by time, patience, and the availability of patients with selective impairments.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

It risks being boring and trying the audience's patience, but succeeds in drawing humour from a blend of anticipation and surprise.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Consider that with tolerance and patience, we godly demons may breed a noble world in a few hundred generations or so.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The value of patience has to be added to the discounted value of the consumption string.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Their patience, however, frayed as the arrearages came to be measured in years rather than months.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

However, the road to fruitful negotiations with public institutions is often long and winding, and must be traveled with patience.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Patience is a personality trait + an attribute or ability.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

So too would cheerfulness and patience in the face of absolute disaster.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Also, when the questions become more complex and involve many databanks, assembly of the data needed exceeds the skill and patience of most biologists.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

If the consumer conceives patience as an attribute or ability that he desires for its own sake, he might rationally take steps to acquire it.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of patience?

Translations of patience

in Chinese (Traditional)

素質, 忍耐，耐心, 紙牌遊戲…

Meaning of patience in English

patience noun [U] (QUALITY)

patience noun [U] (CARD GAME)

Idioms

patience | American Dictionary

patient

patiently

Examples of patience

Translations of patience

Browse

Learn more with +Plus

Learn more with +Plus