toleration

Etymology

It is borrowed from French tolération,^[2][3][4][5] recorded from the 15th century,^[2][3] from Latin tolerātiō (“a bearing, supporting, enduring”),^[3][4] a rare word in Latin,^[2] the noun of action from the past participle of tolerō (“to bear, endure, suffer”).^[3][6] Klein and Ayto take that verb from the stem of tollō (“to lift up, raise”) or a base meaning "lift, carry",^[4][7] and Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary from Proto-Indo-European *tele- (“to bear, carry”).^[3][8] Compare Italian tollerazione.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Permission granted by authority, licence: 1517–18, in the records of a London city church.^[2] Etymonline likewise says the 1510s,^[3] while the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English say the late 15th century.^[5][9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged's date, 1531, is for the sense of tolerating something.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant permission from those in authority, a sense that died out in the early 18th century,^[2][10] while from 1531 to 1623 it also kept the Latin sense of enduring pain or hardship.^[2][5] The sense that lasted, allowing what one does not actually approve, appears in 1582 in the Rheims translation of the Bible,^[2][3] and Johnson (1755) defined the word in just those terms.^[11] From 1609 it was used specifically of a ruling power's allowing forms of religion other than the established one.^[2][3] The Act of Toleration of 1689 gave dissenting Protestants in England freedom of worship on certain conditions.^[5][3] Because such freedom was granted from above, Paine objected: "Toleration is not the opposite of Intoleration, but is the counterfeit of it."^[3] In the United States it came to be seen later as a natural right.^[3] Narrower uses grew up alongside: a local American licence to gather oysters (1796),^[2][5] physiological tolerance (1877),^[2] and the permitted variation in coins (1887).^[2]

Timeline

• 1517 – permission granted by authority (obsolete by 1727).^[2][10]
• 1531 – endurance of evil or suffering (obsolete by 1623), in Elyot's The Boke Named The Gouernour.^[2]
• 1582 – allowing what is not actually approved; forbearance.^[2][3]
• 1609 – allowance by the ruling power of unofficial forms of religion.^[2][3]
• 1692 – Act of Toleration, the phrase, for the statute of 1689.^[2]
• 1796 – in the United States, a local licence to gather oysters or keep oyster beds.^[2]
• 1877 – (physiology) tolerance.^[2]
• 1887 – (coining) permitted variation.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or practice of putting up with what one does not approve of; forbearance: The school's toleration of late homework surprised the parents.^[12][6][2]
2. A government's allowing of forms of religion and worship other than the established one: religious toleration.^[12][6][2]
3. (physiology, rare) tolerance of a drug or other substance.^[2][5]
4. (coining) The permitted variation in a coin's weight or fineness, also called tolerance.^[2][5]
5. (US, local) A licence to gather oysters or keep oyster beds.^[2][5]
6. (obsolete, 1517–1727) Permission from authority; a licence.^[2][6][5]
7. (obsolete, 1531–1623) The enduring of pain, hardship or evil.^[2][5]

Word family

• tolerationism
• tolerationist
• nontoleration

Related words

• tolerate
• tolerant
• tolerance
• intolerant
• extol
• talent

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 o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins