- suspense
- 1402, "not being executed, unfulfilled" (of legal matters), from Anglo-Fr. suspens (in en suspens "in abeyance," 1306), from O.Fr. suspens "act of suspending," from L. suspensus, pp. of suspendere (see suspend). Meaning "state of mental uncertainty" (1440) is from legal meaning of "not rendered, not paid, not carried out" (e.g. suspended sentence). As a genre of novels, stories, etc., attested from 1952.