suffer

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈsʌf.ə/, US /ˈsʌf.ɚ/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English suffren, borrowed from Anglo-Norman suffrir and Old French sofrir,^[2][3][4] from Vulgar Latin *sufferīre, from Latin sufferre (“to bear, undergo, endure”),^[2][3][5] from sub- “under” and ferre “to carry”,^[2][3][6] from Proto-Indo-European *bher- (“to carry”).^[2] It replaced Old English þolian and þrowian.^[2] It is related to sufferance and bear.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To undergo or endure pain, death or punishment: before 1225 in the OED, probably before 1200 in the Ancrene Riwle in Barnhart.^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

Its use and development in English were tied to the story of Christ's Passion and the tales of martyrs.^[2] To allow or tolerate is from about 1300 in Barnhart, the mid-13th century in Etymonline,^[3][2] as in the biblical suffer fools gladly.^[8] The intransitive sense, to undergo pain or punishment, is from before 1300,^[7] and to suffer from a disease from 1800.^[7]

Timeline

• a. 1225 – to endure pain.^[7]
• c. 1300 – to allow.^[3]
• a. 1300 – intransitive, to feel pain.^[7]
• 1800 – to suffer from a disease.^[7]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To feel pain or distress.
2. To have an illness: suffers from asthma.
3. To experience something unpleasant: suffer a defeat.
4. To become worse in quality.
5. (archaic) To allow or tolerate.

Word family

• sufferer
• sufferingly
• sufferable
• sufferableness
• sufferably
• outsuffer
• insufferable
• sufferance

Related words

• suffering
• bear

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press