Forms: 4 sosteynere, 5 suste(y)nour, -tener, 6– sustainer. [Partly a. AF. *sustenour, OF. sosteneor, sousteneur, f. sostenir to SUSTAIN; partly directly f. SUSTAIN + -ER1.] One who or that which sustains.
1. One who or that which upholds, supports or keeps in being; an upholder, supporter.
a. 1400. in Eng. Gilds (1870), 349. Principal sosteynere of þe fraunchyse.
c. 1412. Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 2856. Honour, long lyfe,… Mot haue oure sustenour, our prince & kyng!
1429. Rolls of Parlt., IV. 360/1. Ye seid Inhabitauntz ben susteners and supportours.
1547–64. Bauldwin, Mor. Philos. (Palfr.), 126. The sustainers of wrong.
a. 1680. Charnock, Attrib. God (1682), 709. God is the Lord of all, as he is the sustainer of all by his power.
1726. Butler, Serm. Rolls, xiv. 288. When they shall have a Sensation, that He is the Sustainer of their Being, that they exist in him.
1845. Encycl. Metrop., II. 861/1. Almighty Creator and Sustainer of all things.
1909. Q. Rev., April, 657. The aim of our politics can be no other than that the Bohemian people should again become the sustainers of the idea of the State.
† b. pl. Military supports. Obs. rare.
1708. Lond. Gaz., No. 4468/2. [They] had for the Attack on the Right 800 Grenadiers,… and for the Left 1600 Grenadiers, with the like number of Sustainers.
c. A thing or circumstance that sustains a condition.
1818. Shelley, Rosal. & Helen, 337. The very hope of death’s dear rest: Which, since the heart within my breast Of natural life was dispossessed, Its strange sustainer there had been.
1831. Lytton, Godolphin, ix. It is not always a sustainer of the stage delusion to be enamoured of an actress.
2. † a. One who supports or holds a thing. rare.
c. 1616. Chapman, Homer’s Hymn to Vesta & Merc., 17. Of Heauens golden Rodd The sole Sustainer.
b. A supporting structure or device.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 25 April, 7/3. The weight of the carriage was 60lb., of the engine 200lb., and of the grating of sustainers 70lb.
1909. Cent. Dict., Suppl., Sustainer..., a little disk,… which serves to support in an upright position the wick of a night-light.
† 3. A sufferer. Obs. rare.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XXIII. 524. Thy selfe, hast a sustainer bene Of much affliction in my cause.
4. One who provides another with the necessaries of life. rare.
1678. Sir G. Mackenzie, Crim. Laws Scot., I. xix. § 16 (1699), 106. By sustainers, are meant such as entertain the Thief at bed and board.
1866. J. G. Murphy, Comm. Exod. xxii. 22. The decease of the father leaves both the widow and the child without their natural protector and sustainer.
