ABEYANCE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Abeyance

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/əbˈeɪəns/ Listen

noun

Abeyance n.

(Law) Expectancy; condition of being undetermined. Note: When there is no person in existence in whom an inheritance (or a dignity) can vest, it is said to be in abeyance, that is, in expectation; the law considering it as always potentially existing, and ready to vest whenever a proper owner appears.

Suspension; temporary suppression. "Keeping the sympathies of love and admiration in a dormant state, or state of abeyance."

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Etymology of 'Abeyance'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Abeyance" Quotes from Famous Books

... which would certainly be beneficial to individual health; viz., that the husband and wife should habitually occupy separate beds. Such a practice would undoubtedly serve to keep the sexual instincts in abeyance. Separate apartments, or at least the separation of the beds by a curtain, are recommended by some estimable physicians, who suggest that such a plan would enable both parties to conduct their morning ablutions with proper thoroughness and without ...

— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... pursue the proceedings until final completion, judgment and execution thereof.' Nevertheless, in practice and with due regard to the good administration of justice, the council's decree went perhaps too far. The question remained in abeyance and was not settled until four years afterwards, at the end of Talon's second term in Canada. He had written to Colbert on the subject stating that he would be glad to be discharged of the judicial responsibility, ...

— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais

... and a number of them captured from time to time for the infringement of the law. The United States Government attempted to raise issues which would {376} limit Canadian rights, but all these questions were placed in abeyance for twelve years by the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, which opened up the provincial fisheries to the people of the United States, on condition of free trade between the provinces and that country in certain natural products of the mines, fisheries, and farms of the two ...

— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... second quarter, and culminated, as the orb reached its fulness, in a species of delirium, during which it was necessary to carefully watch him; that it diminished with the lessening crescent until it fell away into a quiet abeyance of faculties that was but a step apart from the normal intelligence of his kind. At his worst he was a stricken madman acutely sensitive to impressions; at his best an inoffensive peasant who said nothing ...

— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... quite willingly. Her worst fears about her father were held in abeyance, now that she was really on her way to him. The girls entered the waiting room. A tired-looking woman was busy putting out the gas, and reducing the room to darkness for the night. She turned round as the ...

— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

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