forbear n : a person from whom you are descended [syn: forebear] v : not do something; "He refrained from hitting him back"; "she could not forbear weeping" [syn: refrain] [ant: act] [also: forborne, forbore]

English

Etymology 1

Middle English forberen, from Old English forberan to endure, do without, from for- + beran to bear

Verb

1. To keep away from; to avoid; to abstain from; to give up.
2. To refrain from proceeding; to pause; to delay.
3. To refuse; to decline; to give no heed.
4. To control one's self when provoked.

Etymology 2

Alternative spelling of forebear.

Noun

1. Forebear, ancestor.

Quotations

• [1906] 2004, Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, Ethel Wedgwood tr.

  Sirs, I am quite sure that the King of England's forbears rightly and justly lost the conquered lands that I hold [...]

• [1936] 2004, Raymond William Firth, We the Tikopia http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=Eiji-EnuhXUC&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&sig=aB2VV0fcWv6lkQPQatQQbDhlm_8

  One does not take one’s family name therefrom, and again the position of the mother in that group is determined through her father and his male forbears in turn; this too is a patrilineal group.

• 1997, H. L. Hix, Understanding W. S. Merwin http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=8JIveUt8StQC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&sig=_AETFoZUYlti38_Va0zOHD4yZTk

  Beginning with the bald declaration “I think I was cold in the womb,” the speaker in “The Forbears” then decides that his brother (who died soon after birth) must also have been cold in the womb, like his grandfather John and the forbears who antedated John:

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