Patience and Patients: How Can You Tell Which Word to Use? (original) (raw)

Patience vs. Patients: How to Choose the Right Word

These terms sound the same, but they have very different meanings

Updated on August 13, 2024

Patient vs. patience: What's the difference? The words are homophones: They sound the same but have very different meanings. The noun "patience" refers to the ability to wait or endure hardship for a long time without becoming upset. The noun "patients" is the plural form of "patient"—someone who receives medical care. There are a few tricks to learning which term to use and when.

Patience means having the capacity to be patient. Someone who is patient is not in a hurry and can wait calmly and in a relaxed manner for what comes next. Put another way, patience means not being hasty or impetuous. A sentence using the word might read: He had the patience to wait for three hours while his son was at football practice.

How to Use Patients

Use patients whenever you are talking about those who have been admitted to a hospital. Additionally, individuals who are under a doctor's care or even those who visit a hospital emergency room. walk-in clinic, or doctor's office for treatment are considered to be patients. A sentence using this term might read: Most doctors in private practice have to see many patients each day.

Examples of Patient vs. Patience

Using the terms in context in everyday language can give you a clearer picture of when to use patience or patients. As this anonymous quote makes clear:

Thinking of mothers as people who are willing to calmly endure many hardships, reminds you that, as a group, they show a lot of patience. By contrast, individuals dealing with the health system are often patients, as in:

You might even combine the two terms in one sentence:

How to Remember the Difference

An easy mnemonic device you can use to help you remember when to use patience is embedded in its definition: To have patience, you have to be able to wait calmly. Both patience and calmly contain the letter "c." By contrast, if you visit a doctor for treatment, you are a patient. Both a doctor and her patients contain at least one "t."

The Adjective Form of Patience

What makes patience tricky is that its adjective form is patient. Because the adjective is spelled the same as the word for a person receiving medical care, the only way to distinguish between the two is by looking at the context of the sentence. For example, suppose you say:

It's clear that in this case, patients refers to those receiving medical care or being seen by a doctor. By contrast, you can say:

It's clear that the sentence is referring to customers who had the attribute of being patient. You can use both terms logically in a sentence:

In this case, the patients (individuals seeking medical care) were patient (showed a calm willingness to wait) to see the doctor. You can correctly use the noun form of each word and say essentially the same thing:

Practice Learning Patient vs. Patience

To see if you understand the difference between patience and patients, take this brief quiz.

  1. The crisis in emergency care is taking its toll on doctors, nurses, and _____.
  2. "Now look, Peggy. I'm running out of money and I'm running out of _____. Either you are going to marry me or not, and I want to know right now." (Barry Goldwater, quoted by John W. Dean in "Pure Goldwater")

Answers

  1. The crisis in emergency care is taking its toll on doctors, nurses, and patients.
  2. "Now look, Peggy. I'm running out of money and I'm running out of patience. Either you are going to marry me or not, and I want to know right now."

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