suspend

/səˈspɛnd/

/səˈspɛnd/

Other forms: suspended; suspending; suspends

You can use the verb suspend any time you need to stop something. Whether it’s your judgment, a rule, or bus service, when you suspend it, you temporarily bring it to a halt.

Suspend often describes stopping an activity for a while. A winter storm, for example, may suspend air travel until weather conditions improve. Suspend also works in a more figurative sense, such as when you suspend your doubt in order to give someone or something a fair chance. A student who is suspended is temporarily forbidden from attending class. Don't confuse this with expel, which means he or she may never return.

Definitions of suspend

1. verb

   bar temporarily; from school, office, etc.
   synonyms: debar

   types:

   rusticate, send down

   suspend temporarily from college or university, in England

   type of:

   expel, kick out, throw out

   force to leave or move out
2. verb

   make inoperative or stop
   “suspend payments on the loan”

   synonyms: set aside

   type of:

   alter, change, modify

   cause to change; make different; cause a transformation
3. verb

   stop a process or a habit by imposing a freeze on it
   “Suspend the aid to the war-torn country”

   synonyms: freeze

   type of:

   break, interrupt

   terminate
4. verb

   render temporarily ineffective
   “the prison sentence was suspended”

   type of:

   defer, hold over, postpone, prorogue, put off, put over, remit, set back, shelve, table

   hold back to a later time
5. verb

   hang freely
   types:

   dangle

   cause to dangle or hang freely

   type of:

   hang, hang up

   cause to be hanging or suspended
6. verb

   cause to be held in suspension in a fluid
   “suspend the particles”

   types:

   resuspend

   put back into suspension

   type of:

   alter, change, modify

   cause to change; make different; cause a transformation