Definition
To temporarily interrupt, halt, or withhold something — a right, duty, privilege, status, or legal proceeding — with an expectation of eventual resumption. The term carries two principal legal meanings:
1. As applied to persons and professional status: To temporarily remove an official, attorney, officer, or licensed practitioner from the exercise of their duties or functions for a defined or indefinite interval, short of permanent removal or disbarment. Suspension of an attorney, for example, bars them from practicing law during the suspension period but does not terminate their license outright.
2. As applied to proceedings, rules, or legal operations: To cause something to cease operating temporarily — a statute, a sentence, a judgment, a debt obligation, or a procedural rule — without extinguishing it. The suspended thing remains in existence but is rendered inoperative for the duration.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To halt something temporarily; to discontinue or interrupt a function, task, position, or event; to hang freely.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To cause to cease for a time; to hinder from proceeding; to interrupt; to delay; to stay.
The common and legal meanings share substantial overlap, but legal usage adds precision that the ordinary sense lacks. In law, suspension implies a preserved legal relationship — the office, license, sentence, or rule continues to exist and may be revived. Ordinary usage does not carry that implication of latent continuity. A researcher who imports the casual sense of "halt" may miss the legal significance: a suspended sentence, for instance, is still a sentence.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Suspension of an attorney or officer: Temporary exclusion from professional function, typically as a disciplinary sanction. Distinguished from disbarment (permanent) and censure (no practice restriction).
Suspension of sentence: A court's withholding of the execution of a criminal sentence, often conditioned on probationary compliance. The sentence exists but is not carried out unless conditions are violated.
Suspension of a statute or rule: A legislative or judicial act rendering a law or procedural rule inoperative for a period, without repeal.
Suspension of payment or debt: Temporary deferral of an obligation, as in a creditor agreeing to suspend enforcement, or a bankruptcy stay suspending collection actions.
Suspension of proceedings: A court's order halting an action or process, typically pending resolution of a related matter.
Why It Matters in Research
The term's ambiguity is its primary research hazard. Suspend appears across disciplinary law, criminal procedure, contract law, bankruptcy, and statutory interpretation — and the legal consequences differ substantially by context. A researcher encountering "suspended" in a historical case must determine what was suspended and whether resumption was automatic, conditional, or discretionary.
In professional discipline contexts, historical sources (including Rapalje & Lawrence and the first edition of Black's) focus almost exclusively on attorneys and ecclesiastical persons. Modern disciplinary frameworks have expanded this to cover judges, accountants, physicians, and other licensed professionals. Older case law on attorney suspension may not map cleanly onto modern bar discipline procedures.
In criminal procedure, "suspended sentence" requires particular care. Some jurisdictions distinguish between suspension of imposition of sentence (no sentence is yet pronounced) and suspension of execution of sentence (sentence is pronounced but not carried out). The difference carries significant legal consequences if a violation later occurs, and historical sources rarely make this distinction explicit.
In statutory law, suspension of statutes by executive or emergency authority became a contested constitutional issue particularly in wartime and emergency contexts. Researchers tracing the reach of executive power should note that historical dictionary definitions provide no guidance on these limits; constitutional case law is the operative source.
The Wiktionary sense of "hold in an undetermined or undecided state" maps loosely onto the civil law concept of a matter held sub judice, but this is not a formal legal meaning of suspend and should not be confused with procedural suspension of proceedings.
Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia researchers should note that suspension of tax provisions — such as the temporary suspension of itemized deduction limitations — uses the term in its statutory sense: the provision remains law but is rendered inoperative for the designated period and revives automatically unless further legislative action is taken.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three shelf sources align on the core professional-discipline meaning: to forbid a practitioner from exercising functions for an interval of time. Black's 2nd edition adds meaningfully to this foundation by articulating the broader procedural sense — "to interrupt; to cause to cease for a time; to stay, delay, or hinder; to discontinue temporarily, but with an expectation or purpose of resumption." This is the more useful formulation for general research because it captures the defining characteristic of suspension across all contexts: temporariness with expectation of return.
Rapalje & Lawrence cross-references DISBAR, signaling the distinction between suspension and permanent removal that researchers should keep in view. The cross-reference to SUSPENSE (Co. Litt. 313a) points toward the property law usage — a right in suspense, temporarily inoperative — which the main definitions do not develop. That thread is worth following in historical property research, particularly regarding easements and powers.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is the criminal procedure dimension (suspended sentences), the administrative law dimension (suspended regulations), and any treatment of suspension in bankruptcy or debt contexts. These omissions reflect both the era and the professional-discipline focus of the sources. Researchers in those areas should treat the historical dictionary entries as starting points only.
Jurisdictional Note
Procedures and consequences of professional suspension vary significantly by jurisdiction, particularly regarding automatic reinstatement versus petition requirements after the suspension period ends. In criminal procedure, the distinction between suspended imposition and suspended execution of sentence is recognized in some states but not uniformly codified; the applicable state rule controls. Federal courts have their own standards for suspension of proceedings and sentences.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Overall Limitation on Itemized Deductions Suspended — The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia (tax_153): Illustrates the statutory suspension mechanism, in which a tax provision remains enacted law but is rendered inoperative for a defined period by subsequent legislation.