sustain

To maintain, or keep in existence.

The professor had trouble sustaining students’ interest until the end of her lectures.

The city came under sustained attack by enemy forces.

To provide for or nourish.

provisions to sustain an army

Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.

To encourage or sanction (something).

To experience or suffer (an injury, etc.).

The building sustained major damage in the earthquake.

[…] if you omit The offer of this time, I cannot promise But that you shall sustain moe new disgraces, With these you bear already.

To confirm, prove, or corroborate; to uphold.

to sustain a charge, an accusation, or a proposition

After the vote is taken, the Chairman states that the decision of the Chair is sustained, or reversed, as the case may be.

A mechanism which can be used to hold a note, as the right pedal on a piano.

To call this music bland is to ignore the down-the-drain vocal fade-aways, the extended sax sustains […]