RESPITE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does respite mean? 

• RESPITE (noun)
  The noun RESPITE has 5 senses:

1. a (temporary) relief from harm or discomfort

2. a pause from doing something (as work)

3. an interruption in the intensity or amount of something

4. a pause for relaxation

5. the act of reprieving; postponing or remitting punishment

  Familiarity information: RESPITE used as a noun is common.

• RESPITE (verb)
  The verb RESPITE has 1 sense:

1. postpone the punishment of a convicted criminal, such as an execution

  Familiarity information: RESPITE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RESPITE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A (temporary) relief from harm or discomfort

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

reprieve; respite

Hypernyms ("respite" is a kind of...):

ease; relief (the condition of being comfortable or relieved (especially after being relieved of distress))

Sense 2

Meaning:

A pause from doing something (as work)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

break; recess; respite; time out

Context example:

he took time out to recuperate

Hypernyms ("respite" is a kind of...):

pause (temporary inactivity)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "respite"):

spring break (a week or more of recess during the spring term at school)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An interruption in the intensity or amount of something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

abatement; hiatus; reprieve; respite; suspension

Hypernyms ("respite" is a kind of...):

break; interruption (some abrupt occurrence that interrupts an ongoing activity)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "respite"):

defervescence (abatement of a fever as indicated by a reduction in body temperature)

remission; remittal; subsidence (an abatement in intensity or degree (as in the manifestations of a disease))

Sense 4

Meaning:

A pause for relaxation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

relief; respite; rest; rest period

Context example:

people actually accomplish more when they take time for short rests

Hypernyms ("respite" is a kind of...):

break; intermission; interruption; pause; suspension (a time interval during which there is a temporary cessation of something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "respite"):

breath; breather; breathing place; breathing space; breathing spell; breathing time (a short respite)

Sense 5

Meaning:

The act of reprieving; postponing or remitting punishment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

reprieve; respite

Hypernyms ("respite" is a kind of...):

clemency; mercifulness; mercy (leniency and compassion shown toward offenders by a person or agency charged with administering justice)

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Derivation:

respite (postpone the punishment of a convicted criminal, such as an execution)

• RESPITE (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Postpone the punishment of a convicted criminal, such as an execution

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

reprieve; respite

Hypernyms (to "respite" is one way to...):

defer; hold over; postpone; prorogue; put off; put over; remit; set back; shelve; table (hold back to a later time)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

respite (the act of reprieving; postponing or remitting punishment)

 Context examples 

I obtained from my father a respite of some weeks.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Jealousy had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Consider using adult day care or respite services.

(Alzheimer's Caregivers, NIH: National Institute on Aging)

However, you will get a respite from Saturn from March 20 to July 1, 2020, when Saturn moves into Aquarius to give us all a preview of what is to come in 2021 to March 2023.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

What totally different feelings did Emma take back into the house from what she had brought out!—she had then been only daring to hope for a little respite of suffering;—she was now in an exquisite flutter of happiness, and such happiness moreover as she believed must still be greater when the flutter should have passed away.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

But Sunday made her a very creditable and tolerably cheerful-looking Mrs. Price, coming abroad with a fine family of children, feeling a little respite of her weekly cares, and only discomposed if she saw her boys run into danger, or Rebecca pass by with a flower in her hat.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

“Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled—that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed—that my heart is no longer in the right place—and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. “Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But sleep did not afford me respite from thought and misery; my dreams presented a thousand objects that scared me.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Deprived of this respite, I should have sunk under my hardships.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food; but a circumstance that happened when I arrived on the confines of Switzerland, when the sun had recovered its warmth and the earth again began to look green, confirmed in an especial manner the bitterness and horror of my feelings.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)