Library / English Dictionary

SUFFICE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be sufficient; be adequate, either in quality or quantity

Example:

Nothing else will serve

Synonyms:

answer; do; serve; suffice

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "suffice" is one way to...):

fulfil; fulfill; live up to; satisfy (meet the requirements or expectations of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "suffice"):

bridge over; keep going; tide over (suffice for a period between two points)

go a long way (suffice or be adequate for a while or to a certain extent)

function; serve (serve a purpose, role, or function)

measure up; qualify (prove capable or fit; meet requirements)

go around (be sufficient)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
It ----s that CLAUSE

Derivation:

sufficiency (the quality of being sufficient for the end in view)

sufficiency (an adequate quantity; a quantity that is large enough to achieve a purpose)

sufficiency (sufficient resources to provide comfort and meet obligations)

sufficient (of a quantity that can fulfill a need or requirement but without being abundant)

Credits

 Context examples: 

While the study included fMRI scans of subjects performing tasks, the researchers determined that resting-state MRI techniques should suffice to map the areas in future studies using the tools they developed.

(Connectome map more than doubles human cortex’s known regions, NIH)

“We have three years of the past to discuss. Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon the notable adventure of the empty house.”

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Suffice it that we rushed up the stair which led direct to the Captain’s room, and there we found him lying with the bone gleaming white through his throat.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A few seconds sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again and put his glass in his pocket.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But neither the official police nor Holmes’s own small but very efficient organisation sufficed to clear away the mystery.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And could not such words from her whom I fondly prized before every other gift of fortune suffice to chase away the fiend that lurked in my heart?

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Let that suffice.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

But, not to trouble the reader with a particular account of my distresses, let it suffice, that on the fifth day I arrived at the last island in my sight, which lay south-south-east to the former.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Walking along the Strand, afterwards, and observing a hard mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled marble, but was labelled Mock Turtle, I went in and bought a slab of it, which I have since seen reason to believe would have sufficed for fifteen people.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She seized, with an unsteady hand, the precious manuscript, for half a glance sufficed to ascertain written characters; and while she acknowledged with awful sensations this striking exemplification of what Henry had foretold, resolved instantly to peruse every line before she attempted to rest.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)