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Forbear   Listen
noun
Forbear  n.  (Also spelled forebear)  An ancestor; a forefather; usually in the plural. (Scot.) "Your forbears of old."



verb
Forbear  v. t.  (past forbore, obs. forbare; past part. forborne; pres. part. forbearing)  
1.
To keep away from; to avoid; to abstain from; to give up; as, to forbear the use of a word of doubtful propriety. "But let me that plunder forbear." "The King In open battle or the tilting field Forbore his own advantage."
2.
To treat with consideration or indulgence. "Forbearing one another in love."
3.
To cease from bearing. (Obs.) "Whenas my womb her burden would forbear."



Forbear  v. i.  (past forbore, obs. forbare; past part. forborne; pres. part. forbearing)  
1.
To refrain from proceeding; to pause; to delay. "Shall I go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear?"
2.
To refuse; to decline; to give no heed. "Thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear."
3.
To control one's self when provoked. "The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear." "Both bear and forbear."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Forbear" Quotes from Famous Books



... but very expedient, yea, needful, and required from us as a duty; but that swearing which our Lord had expressly prohibited to His disciples, and which thence, questionless, the brethren to whom St. James did write did well understand themselves obliged to forbear, having learned so in the first catechisms of Christian institution; that is, needless and heedless swearing in ordinary conversation, a practice then frequent in the world, both among Jews and Gentiles; the which also, to the shame of our age, is now so much in fashion, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... ease as whirlwinds move feathers, and begets in us an unwearied industry to the attainment of what we desire. And such an industry did, notwithstanding much watchfulness against it, bring them secretly together,—I forbear to tell the manner how,—and at last to a marriage too, without the allowance of those friends whose approbation always was, and ever will be necessary, to make even ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... added Lucilia. 'I want no director or monitor, concerning any duty or act, which it falls to me to perform, other than I find within me. I have no need of a divine messenger, to stand ever at my side, to tell me what I must do, and what I must forbear. I have within me instincts and impulses, which I find amply sufficient. The care and duty of every day is very much alike, and a little experience and observation, added to the inward instinct, makes me quite superior to most difficulties and ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... husband was the best young man in the settlement. She was entirely satisfied with him, and grateful to him for taking the orphan niece of a poor post commandant, without prospects since the conquest, and giving her sumptuous quarters and comparative wealth; but she could not forbear amusing ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... present, no answer to those questions was to be hoped for from anybody in the house. Mr. Franklin appeared to think it a point of honour to forbear repeating to a servant—even to so old a servant as I was—what Miss Rachel had said to him on the terrace. Mr. Godfrey, who, as a gentleman and a relative, had been probably admitted into Mr. Franklin's confidence, respected that confidence as he was bound ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins


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