1
: to hold oneself back from especially with an effort
forbore mentioning the incident
tried to forbear making rash judgments
2
obsolete
: to do without
3
obsolete
: to leave alone : shun
forbear his presence—
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare2
: to control oneself when provoked : be patient
forbore with his friend's failings
forbearer
noun
Synonyms
Examples of forbear in a Sentence
Verb
He carefully forbore any mention of her name for fear of upsetting them.
We decided to forbear provoking him any further.
We decided to forbear from provoking him any further.
He forebore to mention her name.
Recent Examples on the Web
Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica, 8 Apr. 2024
Tuesday’s proposal makes the same commitment, the people said, forbearing from 26 provisions of Title II and more than 700 other agency rules that could be seen as intrusive.
—Brian Fung, CNN, 26 Sep. 2023
The limitation of unanimous consent agreements is that on matters of controversy, senators are not going to mutually agree to forbear.
—Jay Cost, Washington Examiner, 29 Apr. 2021
So, if a person is enacting their right to resistance, then bystanders have an obligation to forbear and not to interfere.
—TheWeek, 12 Apr. 2020
But crucially, the FCC did not forbear from a few parts of Title II that protect consumers in other ways.
—Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica, 12 July 2017
Emily Evans Eerdmans, Architectural Digest, 23 July 2024
The area where today’s GOP would be most recognizable to its Reaganite forbears is in the domain of cultural and moral conservatism.
—Matthew Wilson, Orange County Register, 21 July 2024
To our 17th-century forbears, history was nearing its close.
—Martin Rees, TIME, 24 Apr. 2024
That is, unless an actor’s forbears happened to be named Tiffany, Cartier or Boucheron.
—Guy Trebay, New York Times, 13 Mar. 2024
This feels, to many European Jews, like the same blindness or insouciance that allowed millions of their forbears to be sent to Nazi camps to be gassed.
—Roger Cohen, New York Times, 31 Oct. 2023
The march of millions of Russians carrying images of their dead forbears in parades across the country became a feature of the May 9 Victory Day celebration, marking the Russian triumph in the Great Patriotic War.
—Roger Cohen Nanna Heitmann, New York Times, 6 Aug. 2023
Other families, such as the Queens and the Mahoneys, traced their ancestry to a female forbear who was considered non-White but who had spent time in England before arriving in Maryland.
—Washington Post, 11 Dec. 2020
Three decades ago, Likud, then a more traditional conservative party, shunned Mr. Ben-Gvir’s ideological forbear, Meir Kahane, for being too extreme.
—Patrick Kingsley, New York Times, 24 Oct. 2022
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
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Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
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Verb
The Commission has never reversed a decision to forbear in this situation.
—Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica, 8 Apr. 2024
Tuesday’s proposal makes the same commitment, the people said, forbearing from 26 provisions of Title II and more than 700 other agency rules that could be seen as intrusive.
—Brian Fung, CNN, 26 Sep. 2023
The limitation of unanimous consent agreements is that on matters of controversy, senators are not going to mutually agree to forbear.
—Jay Cost, Washington Examiner, 29 Apr. 2021
So, if a person is enacting their right to resistance, then bystanders have an obligation to forbear and not to interfere.
—TheWeek, 12 Apr. 2020
But crucially, the FCC did not forbear from a few parts of Title II that protect consumers in other ways.
—Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica, 12 July 2017
Noun
One deployment of these colors that would have shocked our design forbears is in the kitchen.
—Emily Evans Eerdmans, Architectural Digest, 23 July 2024
The area where today’s GOP would be most recognizable to its Reaganite forbears is in the domain of cultural and moral conservatism.
—Matthew Wilson, Orange County Register, 21 July 2024
To our 17th-century forbears, history was nearing its close.
—Martin Rees, TIME, 24 Apr. 2024
That is, unless an actor’s forbears happened to be named Tiffany, Cartier or Boucheron.
—Guy Trebay, New York Times, 13 Mar. 2024
This feels, to many European Jews, like the same blindness or insouciance that allowed millions of their forbears to be sent to Nazi camps to be gassed.
—Roger Cohen, New York Times, 31 Oct. 2023
The march of millions of Russians carrying images of their dead forbears in parades across the country became a feature of the May 9 Victory Day celebration, marking the Russian triumph in the Great Patriotic War.
—Roger Cohen Nanna Heitmann, New York Times, 6 Aug. 2023
Other families, such as the Queens and the Mahoneys, traced their ancestry to a female forbear who was considered non-White but who had spent time in England before arriving in Maryland.
—Washington Post, 11 Dec. 2020
Three decades ago, Likud, then a more traditional conservative party, shunned Mr. Ben-Gvir’s ideological forbear, Meir Kahane, for being too extreme.
—Patrick Kingsley, New York Times, 24 Oct. 2022
Dictionary Entries Near forbear
Cite this Entry
“Forbear.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forbear. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
forbear
1 of 2 verb
for·bear
fȯr-ˈba(ə)r 
fər-,
-ˈbe(ə)r
1
: to hold back or keep from : abstain
2
: to be patient when annoyed
forbearer
noun
forbear
2 of 2variant of forebear
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