Other forms: suspensions
Suspension is the system of springs and shock absorbers between a car's wheels and its body — the part that swallows the bumps. You meet it every time a front wheel drops into a pothole and the whole car dips, rocks once and settles.
The other main meaning is a stopping: the suspension of a bus service, the suspension of talks, a halt that could be lifted again next week. A pupil sent home for a week is on suspension, and so is a footballer banned for three matches. Chemists use it for solid particles floating in a liquid without dissolving, which is why medicine that says shake before use is a suspension. Suspension of disbelief is what you do when you accept dragons for two hours in a cinema. A suspension bridge hangs its road from cables, and that idea of hanging runs under every sense the word has.
1nounsuspensionThe system of springs and shock absorbers connecting a vehicle's wheels to its body.
“The suspension on the old van groaned over every bump in the lane.”
2nounactThe act of stopping something for a period of time.
“The suspension of flights lasted three days.”
3nountemporaryA temporary ban from a school, a job or a sport.
“He came back from suspension and scored twice.”
4nounmixtureA mixture in which solid particles float in a liquid without dissolving.
“Shake the bottle, because the medicine is a suspension and it settles.”
Suspension is Latin suspensiō, from suspendo, to hang up: sub-, 'under', plus pendo, 'to hang'. Everything in the word hangs — the car body on its springs, the particles in the liquid, the decision nobody has taken. The root beneath it is Proto-Indo-European *(s)pend-, to pull or to spin.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)péndeti
Proto-Italic
*pendō — to hang, to put in a hanging position
Latin
suspensiō — arching, vaulting; suspension
English, today
suspension
Built from
Latin suspensiō (“arching, vaulting; suspension”), from suspendo (“to hang up, to suspend”), from sub- (“under”) + pendo (“to hang, to suspend”), from Proto-Italic pendō (“to hang, to put in a hanging position”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)péndeti, from (s)pend- (“to pull; to spin”)). Compare Anglo-Norman suspensiun, French suspension, Occitan suspensio.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA