How to Use sustenance in a Sentence

sustenance

noun
  • The village depends on the sea for sustenance.
  • Tree bark provides deer with sustenance in periods of drought.
  • She draws spiritual sustenance from daily church attendance.
  • The evacuees placed in them might even turn to them for sustenance.
    — Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Washington Post, 9 Dec. 2022
  • The lack of food would drive up prices for what sustenance remains.
    — Alex Ward, Vox, 19 Oct. 2018
  • To declare there is no sustenance in the past is of course a half- lie.
    — Hazlitt, 2 Oct. 2024
  • The birds get sustenance, and the berries get to disperse their seeds.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 19 Aug. 2022
  • Music has been like food for me, like bread, like sustenance.
    — Mary Colurso | [email protected], al, 30 Aug. 2022
  • Then, of course, there’s the question of food and sustenance.
    — Chris Young, Interesting Engineering, 10 Nov. 2025
  • If this class of drugs rewires our brains and guts to think of food as just sustenance, the world will be so sad.
    — Laura Reiley, Washington Post, 2 Oct. 2023
  • The building in large part serves to provide sustenance to those in need.
    — Peter Krouse, cleveland, 27 Feb. 2021
  • The storm killed many deer and fruit trees that the people rely on for sustenance.
    — Science News Staff, Science | AAAS, 12 Sep. 2017
  • The gift of hearty sustenance is ideal for the winter months ahead.
    — Naveen Kumar, CNN Underscored, 7 Dec. 2020
  • Support the show and buy your sustenance from the vendors on-site, folks.
    — Kirby Adams, The Courier-Journal, 3 July 2019
  • That, the film suggests, keeps us alive in ways that go beyond sustenance.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 9 Feb. 2024
  • But the sea is seen less as a threat than as a source of comfort, amusement and sustenance.
    — J.s. Marcus, WSJ, 11 Oct. 2017
  • The same fortitude that worked for her on the farm becomes her sustenance away from it.
    — Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 May 2018
  • There’s a lot of protein for sustenance, and plenty of sugar for a quick rush.
    — Washington Post, 7 Apr. 2022
  • Beans have been a major source of protein-rich sustenance for thousands of years.
    — USA TODAY, 12 July 2023
  • That search for sustenance is the source of most conflicts between humans and bear.
    — Sarah Linn, Sacbee.com, 16 Apr. 2026
  • But that’s the point, really, to find sustenance in what has always been true.
    — Yohanca Delgado, Time, 22 Jan. 2022
  • To observe so soon into her life story that there is no sustenance in the past is to give the past an edge.
    — Hazlitt, 2 Oct. 2024
  • Weekday mornings, on the other hand, are about speed and sustenance.
    — Lisa Cericola, Southern Living, 11 Aug. 2025
  • Just a regular old kitchen in which those who are hungry can rummage in the fridge for sustenance.
    — Alexandra Lange, Curbed, 1 Aug. 2019
  • For Emily, food, first and foremost, is sustenance and health.
    — Alex Belth, Good Housekeeping, 22 July 2022
  • Not just for a source of sustenance, though—but also a potentially a source of fun.
    — Elise Taylor, Vogue, 30 Nov. 2020
  • And that was the sum total of sustenance that was available to their family.
    — Eugene Scott, Washington Post, 16 Apr. 2018
  • In the eight years since, pure defiance has become sustenance.
    — Luca Evans, Denver Post, 8 May 2026
  • Don’t cut down the fruit tree for a person is the fruit tree, depending upon it for sustenance.
    — Rabbi Avi Weiss, sun-sentinel.com, 3 Sep. 2019
  • To this day, some restaurants in the state honor that early sustenance with their own hearty dishes.
    — The Know, Denver Post, 29 Aug. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sustenance.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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