Suspended

ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED¹.]

  I.  1. Temporarily deprived of office, position or privilege.

1535.  in Burnet, Hist. Ref. (1679), I. Records, 132. Whether any Persons Excommunicate, Suspended, or Interdicted, did give Voices in the same Election?

1659.  Clarke Papers (Camden), IV. 300. The cashiered and suspended officers.

1837.  Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. VI. viii. Louis and his sad suspended Household.

1849.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., ix. II. 408. Compton, the suspended Bishop of London.

1901.  Scotsman, 9 March, 8/4. One of the suspended members had the first place for an amendment.

  2.  Undecided, undetermined.

1576.  Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 194. His suspended and doubtfull mynde.

1779–81.  Johnson, L. P., Milton, Wks. II. 88. One of his friends who had reproved his suspended and dilatory life.

1881.  W. H. White, M. Rutherford’s Autobiog., ii. 20. It is the most difficult thing for us to be satisfied with suspended judgment.

  3.  Temporarily stopped, intermitted: chiefly in phr. suspended animation, a state of temporary insensibility, esp. that due to asphyxia.

1785.  Derby Mercury, 13 Oct., 2/4. By the usual Means of restoring suspended animation being persevered in for three Hours, he discovered Signs of Life, and is since perfectly recovered.

1817.  Shelley, Rev. Islam, XI. xi. Why watched those myriads with suspended breath Sleepless a second night?

1820.  Good, Nosology, 368. Total suspension of all the mental and corporeal functions … Asphyxy. Suspended animation.

1825.  Scott, Betrothed, xiv. In suggesting and applying the usual modes for recalling the suspended sense. Ibid. (1827), Surg. Dau., viii. An old servant waited with the means of restoring suspended animation.

1836.  I. Taylor, Phys. The. Another Life, xvii. 257. A condition of suspended powers.

  4.  Deferred, or of which the fulfilment or execution is deferred.

1848.  Lytton, Harold, VIII. vi. Harold parted from his betrothed, without hint of his suspended designs.

1856.  Dove, Logic Chr. Faith, V. ii. 326. Inasmuch as perfect justice is not executed in this world, man is in a state of suspended condemnation.

  5.  Mus. Of a note of a chord: Prolonged into the following chord, usually so as to constitute a temporary discord.

1853.  J. Smith, Treat. Mus., 33. By carrying on some one tone (technically termed a ‘suspended note’), from the harmony preceding a dissonant chord.

1867.  Macfarren, Harmony (1892), 66. The suspended discords are the 9th, and the 4th, and also the 5th, from the mediant and leading-note.

1889.  Prout, Harmony, xix. 228. The first inversion of the suspended fourth.

  II.  6. Supported by attachment above; hung; hanging. † Suspended bridge = SUSPENSION-BRIDGE.

1796.  Monthly Mag., II. 883. Jordan’s Suspended Bridges.

1815.  J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 223. The clappers now fly to deposit the electricity they have received upon the central bell. They are then again in a condition to be attracted by the suspended bells.

1861.  Stephens & Burn, Bk. Farm-buildings, 368. Suspended or hanging gate for courtyards.

1889.  G. Findlay, Eng. Railway, 44. In 1847 Mr. Bridges Adams introduced the suspended joint with fish-plates.

1901.  J. Black’s Illustr. Carp & Build., Scaffolding, 18. We recognise, by the tell-tale cavities left in the existing stonework, that the scaffolds were suspended ones.

  b.  Entom. (See quots.)

1826.  Kirby & Sp., Entomol., IV. 300. Suspended,… when one part is joined to another by a ligature, without being inserted in it.

1841.  Westwood, Brit. Butterflies, 54. The mode in which these caterpillars [of the Peacock Butterfly] change to suspended chrysalides.

1871.  E. Newman, Brit. Butterflies, 19. Suspended … those in which the chrysalids are attached by the tail only, and hang with the head downwards.

  c.  Bot. Of an ovule (or seed): Attached at or near the summit of the ovary (or fruit) and hanging vertically.

1832.  Lindley, Introd. Bot., 159. When an ovulum … hangs from the summit of the cavity, it is pendulous; and when from a little below the summit, it is suspended.

1861.  Bentley, Man. Bot., 336. A seed may be erect, inverse or pendulous, suspended, ascending, &c.

  7.  Held up without attachment; held aloft.

1817.  Shelley, Rev. Islam, I. xi. A vapour like the sea’s suspended spray Hung gathered.

  8.  Held in suspension; diffused in a fluid medium, as solid particles.

1832.  Babbage, Econ. Manuf., vii. (ed. 3), 51. The coarsest portion of the suspended matter first subsides.

1851–3.  Tomlinson’s Cycl. Arts (1867), II. 684/1. It … contains suspended impurities coated with albumen.

1877.  Huxley, Physiogr., 141. A part of the suspended sediment falls to the bottom.