bearable

Etymology

It is formed from English bear (“to carry, endure”) + -able.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Middle English had the adjective as berable.^[7] The verb goes back to Old English beran and Proto-Germanic *beraną, from Proto-Indo-European *bher-.^[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of love, capable of being felt or harboured: about 1454, in Pecock's Folewer to Donet, which speaks of "pure freendful loue berable".^[2][7] Etymonline likewise gives the mid-15th century, but Dictionary.com dates the word 1540–50 and Merriam-Webster Unabridged about 1557.^[3][6][5]

Semantic evolution

Pecock's use died out, and the word returned in the mid-16th century for what could be carried: Cheke has it so in his translation of Matthew, before 1557.^[2] The sense that survives, "able to be endured", is not found until 1656.^[2] It is now chiefly used in the predicate.^[2] A narrower use, of ice able to bear a weight, is recorded from 1837.^[2] The Shorter Oxford records bearableness and bearably earlier in the negative forms unbearableness and unbearably.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1454 – of an emotion, capable of being felt (obsolete).^[2][7]
• before 1557 – able to be carried.^[2][5]
• 1656 – able to be endured, tolerable.^[2]
• 1837 – of ice, able to support a weight.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Able to be endured; tolerable: The cold was bearable once the wind dropped.^[5][2][4]
2. (rare) Able to be carried or transported.^[2]
3. (rare) Of ice, able to support a weight.^[2]
4. (obsolete) Of love or another emotion, capable of being felt or held.^[2][7]

Word family

• bearability
• bearably
• bearableness
• unbearable

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press