Word.ws English Dictionary

sustained

Syllables: sus·tained/səˈsteɪnd/

sustained is the simple past and past participle of sustain.

Adjective

sustained (comparative more sustained, superlative most sustained)

  1. Held continuously at a certain level.
    • Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads.2013 May-June, Charles T. Ambrose, “Alzheimer’s Disease”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 200
  2. Held at a certain pitch.

Meaning of sustain

Verb

sustain (third-person singular simple present sustains, present participle sustaining, simple past and past participle sustained)

  1. (transitive) To maintain, or keep in existence.
    • The professor had trouble sustaining students’ interest until the end of her lectures.
  2. (transitive) To provide for or nourish.
    • provisions to sustain an army
    Synonyms:
    hold
  3. (transitive) To encourage or sanction (something).
  4. (transitive) To experience or suffer (an injury, etc.).
    • The building sustained major damage in the earthquake.
  5. (transitive) To confirm, prove, or corroborate; to uphold.
    • to sustain a charge, an accusation, or a proposition
  6. To allow, accept, or admit (e.g. an objection or motion) as valid.
    Antonyms:
    overrule

See all 10 meanings of sustain

Synonyms of sustained

Forms of sustained

comparativemore sustained
superlativemost sustained

Words formed from sustained

Phrases with sustained

Words that rhyme with sustained

25 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sustained

What does sustained mean?
Sustained means held continuously at a certain level.
What is sustained the simple past and past participle of?
Sustained is the simple past and past participle of sustain.
What part of speech is sustained?
Sustained is an adjective.
How do you pronounce sustained?
Sustained is pronounced /səˈsteɪnd/.

Words near sustained in the dictionary

  1. sustainable developments
  2. sustainable tourist
  3. sustainable tourists
  4. sustainables
  5. sustainably
  6. sustained
  7. sustained yield
  8. sustained yields
  9. sustainedly
  10. sustainer
  11. sustainers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sustained (page history and authors); sustain (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sustained.wav.

Cite this entry: “sustained.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sustained. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.