|a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.|
|a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.|
|1.||tolerant and even-tempered perseverance|
|2.||the capacity for calmly enduring pain, trying situations, etc|
|3.||chiefly (Brit) US equivalent: solitaire any of various card games for one player only, in which the cards may be laid out in various combinations as the player tries to use up the whole pack|
|4.||obsolete permission; sufferance|
|[C13: via Old French from Latin patientia endurance, from patī to suffer]|
"Patience n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue." [Ambrose Bierce, "Devil's Dictionary," 1911]Meaning "constancy in effort" is attested from 1510s. Meaning "card game for one person" is from 1816.
see try one's patience.
family of card games played by one person. Solitaire was originally called (in various spellings) either patience, as it still is in England, Poland, and Germany, or cabale, as it still is in Scandinavian countries.