SUSTENANCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sustenance mean? 

• SUSTENANCE (noun)
  The noun SUSTENANCE has 3 senses:

1. a source of materials to nourish the body

2. the financial means whereby one lives

3. the act of sustaining life by food or providing a means of subsistence

  Familiarity information: SUSTENANCE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SUSTENANCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A source of materials to nourish the body

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Synonyms:

aliment; alimentation; nourishment; nutriment; nutrition; sustenance; victuals

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

food; nutrient (any substance that can be metabolized by an animal to give energy and build tissue)

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

course (part of a meal served at one time)

vitamin (any of a group of organic substances essential in small quantities to normal metabolism)

wheat germ (embryo of the wheat kernel; removed before milling and eaten as a source of vitamins)

stodge (heavy and filling (and usually starchy) food)

puree (food prepared by cooking and straining or processed in a blender)

mince (food chopped into small bits)

mess (soft semiliquid food)

meal; repast (the food served and eaten at one time)

kosher (food that fulfills the requirements of Jewish dietary law)

ingesta (solid and liquid nourishment taken into the body through the mouth)

finger food (food to be eaten with the fingers)

fast food (inexpensive food (hamburgers or chicken or milkshakes) prepared and served quickly)

dish (a particular item of prepared food)

dainty; delicacy; goody; kickshaw; treat (something considered choice to eat)

milk (produced by mammary glands of female mammals for feeding their young)

Derivation:

sustain (provide with nourishment)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The financial means whereby one lives

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Synonyms:

bread and butter; keep; livelihood; living; support; sustenance

Context example:

he could no longer earn his own livelihood

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

resource (available source of wealth; a new or reserve supply that can be drawn upon when needed)

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

amenities; comforts; conveniences; creature comforts (things that make you comfortable and at ease)

maintenance (means of maintenance of a family or group)

meal ticket (a source of income or livelihood)

subsistence (minimal (or marginal) resources for subsisting)

Derivation:

sustain (supply with necessities and support)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of sustaining life by food or providing a means of subsistence

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

maintenance; sustainment; sustenance; sustentation; upkeep

Context example:

fishing was their main sustainment

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

support (the activity of providing for or maintaining by supplying with money or necessities)

Derivation:

sustain (lengthen or extend in duration or space)

 Context examples 

However, it was necessary to mention this matter, lest the world should think it impossible that I could find sustenance for three years in such a country, and among such inhabitants.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

This is important because sharks are top predators that keep the marine ecosystem in check, helping to sustain the food web that supports millions of people worldwide who rely on seafood sustenance.

(New way to save endangered sharks – and our seafood, SciDev.Net)

The twins no longer derive their sustenance from Nature's founts—in short, said Mr. Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, they are weaned—and Mrs. Micawber is, at present, my travelling companion.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The introduction of pumps to ferry water from deep under the Kalahari to its surface has provided sustenance for livestock and fostered increasing herd sizes.

(Sleeping sands of the Kalahari awaken after more than 10,000 years, NSF)

What do they do but live and suck in sustenance and grow fat?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Beaufort had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes, but it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance for some months, and in the meantime he hoped to procure some respectable employment in a merchant’s house.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They clung to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling—to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, and which wound between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy- faced lambs:—they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Then he would cast a glance of fear at the wolf-circle drawn expectantly about him, and like a blow the realisation would strike him that this wonderful body of his, this living flesh, was no more than so much meat, a quest of ravenous animals, to be torn and slashed by their hungry fangs, to be sustenance to them as the moose and the rabbit had often been sustenance to him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I applied myself to the king, and assured his majesty, that I came from a country which abounded with several millions of both sexes, and of my own stature; where the animals, trees, and houses, were all in proportion, and where, by consequence, I might be as able to defend myself, and to find sustenance, as any of his majesty’s subjects could do here; which I took for a full answer to those gentlemen’s arguments.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I had first, however, provided for my sustenance for that day by a loaf of coarse bread, which I purloined, and a cup with which I could drink more conveniently than from my hand of the pure water which flowed by my retreat.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)