sustenance
noun
Simple meaning
Something that provides support or nourishment.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
suhstuhnuhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsʌstənəns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Something that provides support or nourishment.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Something that provides support or nourishment.
Used this way, sustenance is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- alimentation , a specialist term, precise but narrower
- sustainment , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use sustenance
- “They were in want of sustenance.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
The act of nourishing or the state of being nourished.
Nourishment, as a process or as a substance.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: something that provides support or nourishment
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.