forbear

present singular third person forbears · participle present forbearing · past forbore · participle past forborne · archaic participle past forborn · alternative obsolete forebear

1. transitiveTo keep away from; to avoid; to abstain from.

   The earth shall soon dissolve like snow the sun forbear to shine

   1779, John Newton, “Amazing Grace”

   3 more examples

   Mr. Sheriff, I desire that this manacling may be forborn: if you please to clap a guard of a hundred men upon us, I shall pay for it. This is not only a disgrace to me, but in general to all soldiers; which doth more trouble me than the loss of my life.

   1649, “185. The Trial of Colonel John Morris, Governor of Pontefract Castle; at the Assizes at the Castle of York, before Mr. John Puleston, and Mr. Baron Thorpe, Justices of Assize, for High Treason: […]”, in [William] Cobbett, editor, Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanours from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, volume IV, London: Printed by Thomas Curson Hansard, […]; published by R. Bagshaw [et al.], published 1809, →OCLC, column 1266

   Poor Arabs wondered why I had no mare; I forbore to puzzle them by incomprehensible talk of hardening myself, or confess I would rather walk than ride for sparing of animals:

   1926, T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, New York: Anchor, published 1991, page 170

   For his part, Tharoor cannot forbear to praise the achievements of men like Arthur Cotton, whose Godavari Delta irrigation scheme remains much as he left it in 1852.

   2017 September 7, Ferdinand Mount, “Umbrageousness”, in London Review of Books

2. intransitiveTo refrain from proceeding; to pause; to delay.

   Por[tia]. I pray you tarrie, pauſe a day or two Before you hazard, for in chooſing wrong I looſe your companie ; therefore forbeare a while, /[...]

   c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 173

   1 more example

   Then the king of Iſrael gathered the prophets together about foure hundred men, and ſaid vnto them, Shall I goe againſt Ramoth Gilead to battell, or ſhall I forbeare? [...]

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Kings 22:6

3. intransitiveTo refuse; to decline; to withsay; to unheed.

   And thou ſhalt ſpeake my words vnto them, whether they will heare or whether they will forbeare, for they are moſt rebellious.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ezekiel 2:7

4. intransitiveTo control oneself when provoked.

   The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear.

   1782, William Cowper, “Mutual Forbearance”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC

plural forbears

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of forebear.

   [1906] 2004, Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, Ethel Wedgwood tr. Sirs, I am quite sure that the King of England's forbears rightly and justly lost the conquered lands that I hold …

   2 more examples

   One does not take one’s family name therefrom, and again the position of the mother in that group is determined through her father and his male forbears in turn; this too is a patrilineal group.

   [1936] 2004, Raymond William Firth, We the Tikopia http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=Eiji-EnuhXUC&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&sig=aB2VV0fcWv6lkQPQatQQbDhlm_8

   Beginning with the bald declaration “I think I was cold in the womb,” the speaker in “The Forbears” then decides that his brother (who died soon after birth) must also have been cold in the womb, like his grandfather John and the forbears who antedated John:

   1997, H. L. Hix, Understanding W. S. Merwin