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One who supports or sustains; especially, at a funeral, one of those who bear the copse, as distinguished from a bearer, or pallbearer, who helps to hold up the pall.

To sustain; to support; to guard. Nash.

To be subjected to; to bear up against; to pass through; to endure; to suffer; to sustain; as, to undergo toil and fatigue; to undergo pain, grief, or anxiety; to undergothe operation of amputation; food in the stomach undergoes the process of digestion. Certain to undergo like doom. Milton.

To bear up; to raise aloft; to support in an elevated situation; to sustain. Spenser. One short sigh of breath, upbore Even to the seat of God. Milton. A monstrous wave upbore The chief, and dashed him on the craggy shore. Pope.

To keep erect; to support; to sustain; to keep from falling; to maintain. Honor shall uphold the humble in spirit. Prov. xxix 3. Faulconbridge, In spite of spite, alone upholds the day. Shak.

One who, or that which, upholds; a supporter; a defender; a sustainer.

To sustain; to support. [Obs.] "His massy spear upstayed." Milton.

vain oblations. Isa. i. 13. Vain is the force of man To crush the pillars which the pile sustain. Dryden.

n. He wheeled in air, and stretched his vans in vain; His vans no longer could his flight sustain. Dryden.

oots and leaves; to start into growth; to sprout; to germinate. See dying vegetables life sustain, See life dissolving vegetate again. Pope.

One who uses, or sustains the use of, the veto.

To maintain or defend with success; to prove to be valid; to assert convincingly; to sustain against assault; as, to vindicate a right, claim, or title.

To procure or sustain a reduction of flesh; -- said of a jockey in preparation for a race, etc.

Not able to sustain a great weight, pressure, or strain; as, a weak timber; a weak rope.

Hence, to sustain the trying effect of; to bear up against and overcome; to sustain; to endure; to resist; as, to weather the storm. For I can weather the roughest gale. Longfellow. You will weather the difficulties yet. F. W. Robertson.

United States. The claims of the purchasers, whom Georgia had refused to compensate, were sustained by the United States Supreme Court, which (1810) declared the repealing act of 1796 unconstitutional. Congress in 1814 ordered the lands sold and appropriated $5,000,000 to pay the claims.