n. 1. Anxiety or apprehension resulting from an uncertain, undecided, or mysterious situation: The suspense as they were announcing the winners was unbearable. 2. The quality in a work of narrative art, such as a novel or film, that causes the audience to experience pleasurable excitement and anticipation regarding an outcome. 3. Archaic The state or quality of being undecided, uncertain, or indecisive: the suspense of judgment. [Middle English suspense, delay, uncertainty, from Old French souspense, from souspens, suspended, from Latin suspēnsus, past participle of suspendere, to suspend; see SUSPEND.] sus·penseful adj. |
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