Also 5 sustene. [In earliest quot. a. OF. sus-, sostenement, f. sostenir to SUSTAIN; later f. SUSTAIN v. + -MENT.]
1. Means of support; chiefly = SUSTENANCE 1, 2.
c. 1450. Merlin, xxix. 591. Whan Arthur hadde slain Magloras the kinge that was the sustenement of the saisnes.
1588. Parke, trans. Mendoza’s Hist. China, 351. They haue no other sustainment, but onely that which this tree yeeldeth.
1670. Milton, Hist. Eng., III. Wks. 1851, V. 104. They betook them to the Woods, and liv’d by hunting, which was thir only sustainment.
2. The action of sustaining; esp. maintenance in being or activity, in a certain condition or at a certain level; sustentation, (Cf. SUSTENANCE 3.)
1568. Hacket, trans. Thevet’s New found World, lxxxii. 135 b. They began to … till the earth, for to receiue the fruits therof for the sustainment of their liues.
a. 1680. Charnock, Attrib. God (1834), I. 459. God … not … receiving from any place any thing for his preservation or sustainment.
1816. Q. Rev., XV. 70. An unnatural and artificial sustainment of the language and imagery.
1833. J. Martineau, Misc. (1852), 45. In Priestley’s case there was not merely a sustainment—but a positive advancement of character in later years.
1857. Dickens, Lett. (1880), II. 16. In an impossible attitude for the sustainment of its weight.
1876. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. II. 50. The Hebrew forerunners, in whose society his soul sought consolation and sustainment.
