Noun

1. The act of suspending, or the state of being suspended
2. A temporary delay, interruption, or cessation; Of labor, study, pain, etc.; Of decision, determination, judgment, etc.; Of judgment or opinion in view of evidence to be produced.; Of the payment of what is due; as, the suspension of a mercantile firm or of a bank.; Of punishment, or sentence of punishment.; Of a person in respect of the exercise of his office, powers, prerogative, etc.; as, the suspension of a student or of a clergyman.; Of the action or execution of law, etc.; as, the suspension of the habeas corpus act.
3. A conditional withholding, interruption, or delay; as, the suspension of a payment on the performance of a condition.
4. The state of a solid when its particles are mixed with, but not dissolved in, a fluid, and are capable of separation by straining; also, any substance in this state.
5. A keeping of the hearer in doubt and in attentive expectation of what is to follow, or of what is to be the inference or conclusion from the arguments or observations employed.
6. (Scots Law) A stay or postponement of execution of a sentence condemnatory by means of letters of suspension granted on application to the lord ordinary.
7. The prolongation of one or more tones of a chord into the chord which follows, thus producing a momentary discord, suspending the concord which the ear expects; the discord so produced. Cf. retardation.
8. A topological space derived from another by taking the product of the original space with an interval and collapsing each end of the product to a point.
9. A function derived, in a standard way, from another, such that the instant function's domain and codomain are suspensions of the original function's.

Related terms

• pleas in suspension
• points of suspension
• suspension bridge
• suspension of arms
• suspension scale