intolerance

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin intolerantia (“impatience; unendurableness, insolence”),^[2][3][4][5] from intolerāns (“impatient, intolerant”),^[2][3][4] formed from in- (“not”) and tolerāns, the present participle of tolerō (“to bear, endure”).^[3] Merriam-Webster takes it from French intolérance,^[6][7] which Cotgrave glossed as "impatiencie".^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The habit of not tolerating or enduring something; inability or unwillingness to endure a particular thing: first in 1765, in Robert Lowth's Letter to Warburton.^[2][8] Etymonline notes an isolated use from about 1500, apparently meaning unwillingness.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From 1790, in Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, the word was used specifically of the refusal to allow differences of opinion or practice, above all in religion,^[2][3] and Etymonline notes that it was used chiefly of religious matters until the mid 19th century.^[3] The sense "inability to bear or endure" a substance or condition is recorded by 1844,^[3] and in the 20th century the word came to be used of a person's inability to digest or tolerate a food or drug.^[6][8] Earlier words for the same idea, intoleration (1610s) and intolerancy (1620s), are now obsolete.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – an isolated use, apparently meaning unwillingness.^[3]
• 1765 – unwillingness or inability to endure something.^[2][3]
• 1790 – refusal to tolerate differing opinions, especially in religion.^[2]
• 1844 – inability to bear or endure something.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Unwillingness to accept views, beliefs or ways of life different from one's own; bigotry: religious intolerance.^[6][2][9]
2. Inability to endure something: an intolerance of loud noise.^[6][2]
3. In medicine, unusual sensitivity to a drug, food or other substance, or inability to digest it: lactose intolerance.^[6][8][9]

Related words

• intolerant
• tolerance
• tolerate
• intolerable

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin