'Suspend' is Latin for 'hang up' — something left hanging, neither finished nor abandoned. Hence 'suspense.'
To hang something from above so that it moves freely; to temporarily prevent something from continuing or being in force; to temporarily remove someone from a position or privilege.
From Old French 'suspendre,' from Latin 'suspendere' (to hang up, suspend, interrupt), composed of 'sub-' (up from below, in this usage meaning 'up') and 'pendere' (to hang). The literal sense was to hang something up — to cause it to dangle from a point above. The figurative senses (to interrupt a process, to temporarily remove someone) developed from the image of something lifted up and left hanging, neither completed
The word 'suspense' — the anxious uncertainty of a thriller — is from the same Latin root. To be in suspense is to be hanging, suspended between knowing and not knowing, between hope and fear. Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, was essentially the master of keeping audiences etymologically dangling from a