patience

Patience (also known as solitaire) refers to any card game for one person. There is a wide variety of patience games, most of which involve building cards up (or occasionally down) in sequence. Some patience games mostly require luck rather than skill, but some require good judgement in deciding where to place the cards, and in some, where all the cards are visible from the start, thinking ahead is required to work out a winning strategy or determine that none exists. The two most commonly played patience games (both of which also exist as computer games) are Demon (also known as Canfield) and Klondike (the Solitaire game for Windows).

Pa"tience (?), n. [F. patience, fr. L. patientia. See Patient.]

1.

The state or quality of being patient; the power of suffering with fortitude; uncomplaining endurance of evils or wrongs, as toil, pain, poverty, insult, oppression, calamity, etc.

Strenthened with all might, . . . unto all patience and long-suffering. Col. i. 11.

I must have patience to endure the load. Shak.

Who hath learned lowliness From his Lord's cradle, patience from his cross. Keble.

2.

The act or power of calmly or contentedly waiting for something due or hoped for; forbearance.

Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Matt. xviii. 29.

3.

Constancy in labor or application; perseverance.

He learned with patience, and with meekness taught. Harte.

4.

Sufferance; permission.

Hooker.

They stay upon your patience. Shak.

5. Bot.

A kind of dock (Rumex Patientia), less common in America than in Europe; monk's rhubarb.

6. Card Playing

Solitaire.

Syn. -- Patience, Resignation. Patience implies the quietness or self-possession of one's own spirit under sufferings, provocations, etc.; resignation implies submission to the will of another. The Stoic may have patience; the Christian should have both patience and resignation.

© Webster 1913.