patient

English

Etymology

From Middle English pacient, from Middle French patient, from Old French pacient, from Latin patiens, present participle of patior (“to suffer, endure”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₁- (“to hate, hurt”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpeɪʃənt/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪʃənt
• Hyphenation: pa‧tient

Adjective

patient (comparative patienter or more patient, superlative patientest or most patient)

1. (of a person) Willing to wait if necessary; not losing one's temper while waiting.

   Be patient: your friends will arrive in a few hours.

   • 2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Nexus:

     Asari Cultural VI: Due to our lifespan-sometimes reaching 1,000 years of age-we are patient in our decisions, and prefer long-term solutions over short-term gains.

2. Constant in pursuit or exertion; persevering; calmly diligent.

   patient endeavour

   a patient wait

   patient analysis

   • c. 1692, Sir Isaac Newton, letter to Dr. Richard Bentley

     Whatever I have done is due to patient thought.

   • December 15, 2016, Hettie Judah in the New York Times, Beloved Children’s-Book Characters, in Their Own Immersive World

     “Her personal life and her art were very intertwined: You can’t really separate them,” explains Sophia Jansson. “She mirrored her own a reality onto a fictional reality.” And this is perhaps the nub of the Moomin’s enduring appeal: a combination of adventuresome spirit and philosophy, all of which Jansson derived from close and patient observation, of human relationships and of the natural world alike.

   • 2022 December 14, David Turner, “The Edwardian Christmas getaway...”, in RAIL, number 972, page 35:

     In contrast, the Westminster Gazette in 1912 was much more positive about railway staff, praising the "...army of porters hustling and bustling hither and thither with barrows groaning under the weight of bags and baggage and... the ever-patient and long-suffering guards, courteously giving information and advice to the querulous passengers... to the porter the Christmas season means a continuous round of heavy labour, extremely tiring to both nerves and temper, and this fact the public too often seem either to forget or ignore."

3. (obsolete) Physically able to suffer or bear.
   • 1661, John Fell, “Doctor Henry Hammond”, in Christopher Wordsworth, editor, Ecclesiastical Biography, volume 5, published 1810, page 380:

     To this outward structure was joined that strength of constitution, patient of severest toil and hardship; insomuch that for the most part of his life, in the fiercest extremity of cold, he took no other advantage of a fire, than at the greatest distance that he could, to look upon it.

Synonyms

• composed

Antonyms

• impatient
• antsy
• macrophobic

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

patient (plural patients)

1. A person or animal who receives treatment from a doctor or other medically educated person.
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.

   • 2013 June 1, “A better waterworks”, in The Economist‎, volume 407, number 8838, page 5 (Technology Quarterly):

     An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic […] real kidneys […] . But they are nothing like as efficient, and can cause bleeding, clotting and infection—not to mention inconvenience for patients, who typically need to be hooked up to one three times a week for hours at a time.

3. (linguistics, grammar) The noun or noun phrase that is semantically on the receiving end of a verb's action.

   The subject of a passive verb is usually a patient.

   • 1982, Paul J. Hopper, Tense-aspect: Between Semantics & Pragmatics, →ISBN:

     The number of a first or second person participant is generally marked for both agent and patient in all aspects.

   • 2004, Paul Kroeger, Analyzing Syntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach, →ISBN, page 292:

     Since we have argued that the absolutive argument in Dyirbal is the grammatical subject of its clause, we must conclude that in the antipassive construction the agent replaces the patient as grammatical subject.

4. One who, or that which, is passively affected; a passive recipient.
   • c. 1658, Dr. Henry More, Government of the Tongue:

     Malice is a passion so impetuous and precipitate, that it often involves the agent and the patient.

   • 1988, Sarah Waterlow, Sarah Broadie, Nature, Change, and Agency in Aristotle's Physics, →ISBN, page 159:

     For it seems clear that the subject of change is the changed, i.e. the patient -- on one proviso. the proviso is that there be an agent or changer.

   • 1994, Larry Cochran, Joan Laub, Becoming an Agent: Patterns and Dynamics for Shaping Your Life, →ISBN:

     How does a person change from a patient to an agent in shaping and living a course of life?

   • 1999, Lloyd P. Gerson, Aristotle: Logic and metaphysics, →ISBN, page 127:

     According to the tradition, when an agent acts on a patient, the change is located in the patient. If the patient reacts on the agent, then the agent is a patient in the new relation.

   • 2010, Mohua Banerjee, Anil Seth, Logic and Its Applications: Fourth Indian Conference, ICLA 2011, →ISBN, page 7:

     The starting point is that all events involve an agent and a patient. Agents and patients are modelled as (material or non-material) objects, and can therefore be represented as points in conceptual spaces.

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of "linguistics, grammar"): agent

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• -end

Further reading

• “patient”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “patient”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• antipet

Danish

Danish Wikipedia has an article on:

patient

Wikipedia ^da

Etymology

From Latin patiēns (“suffering”), the present active participle of patior (“to suffer”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Noun

patient c (singular definite patienten, plural indefinite patienter)

1. patient (person or animal who receives treatment from a doctor or other medically educated person)

Inflection

Derived terms

See also

• klient

References

• “patient” in Den Danske Ordbog

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French patient, from Old French patient, borrowed from Latin patientem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa.sjɑ̃/

• audio

  (file)

Adjective

patient (feminine patiente, masculine plural patients, feminine plural patientes)

1. patient

   Antonym: impatient

Derived terms

• patiemment
• patienter

Related terms

• patience

Noun

patient m (plural patients, feminine patiente)

1. patient, outpatient
2. (dated) condemned man, person who has been sentenced to death

Further reading

• “patient”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Middle English

Adjective

patient

1. Alternative form of pacient

Noun

patient

1. Alternative form of pacient

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin patiens, patientem.

Noun

patient oblique singular, m (oblique plural patienz or patientz, nominative singular patienz or patientz, nominative plural patient)

1. (medicine) patient

Descendants

• Middle French: patient
  • French: patient
  • → Middle English: pacient, paciente, pacyent, patient
    • English: patient
• Norman: pâcient

Swedish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pasiˈenːt/
• IPA^(key): /paˈt͡ʃenːt/ (Finland)

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

patient c

1. a patient

   Synonyms: klient, sjukling

Declension

Related terms

• långvårdspatient
• patientavgift
• patientförening

Anagrams

• aptiten