sufrir

Forms

sufrir (first-person singular present sufro, first-person singular preterite sufrí, past participle sufrido)^[1] Old Spanish sofrir was very common;^[2] Old Leonese also had sofrer, and the Libro de Alexandre has an analogical present suefre.^[3][2]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Old Spanish sufrir, inherited from Vulgar Latin *sufferīre, a remodelling in the fourth conjugation of Latin sufferre (“to bear, endure”).^{[3][4][5][1][6]} Corominas notes that the word was in general use in every period.^[3]

All the Romance languages except Portuguese start from this regular base: Catalan sofrir, French souffrir and Italian soffrire.^[3][7] Portuguese sofrer comes from another form, *sufferere.^[8][9][3]

The Latin verb is formed from sub- (“under”) and ferō (“to carry, bear”).^[10][1] The simple verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to bear, carry”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) the verb has its physical sense, “to hold up”: the tent of the king of Morocco is held up by two poles, dos tendales la sufren.^[11][3][4] The Cortes of León of 1208 use it for undergoing a wrong: á quien sufrió el tuerto “to the one who suffered the wrong”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Corominas finds the main senses from the beginning.^[3] Alfonso X's prose has “to feel pain or punishment”, “to bear with resignation” and “to bear, hold up” a weight.^[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) defines it as “to tolerate, bear and endure an evil with patience”, with the senses “to hold up a weight” and “to permit”, and notes the old form sofrir.^[13] In current Spanish the sense “to feel pain, illness or harm” comes first, and the verb is also used for undergoing a test or examination.^[5][14]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses sufren for “hold up”.^[3][11]
• 1208 – the Cortes of León use it for “to undergo a wrong”.^[11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses sofrir for bearing great pain.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin fero, suffero and tolero;^[15] sufrible and sufrimiento are first recorded.^[15][4]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades notes that it was formerly sofrir.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To suffer physical harm, pain, illness or punishment: Sufrió una caída en la escalera.^[5][1]
2. To suffer moral harm or grief.^[5]
3. To bear harm with resignation.^[5]
4. To hold up, support, withstand.^[5][12]
5. To tolerate, put up with patiently.^[5][13]
6. To permit, consent to.^[5]
7. To atone for something through punishment.^[5]
8. (carpentry, metalwork) To press a tool hard against the side of a piece opposite to the one being struck, to fit another piece, drive a nail or form a rivet.^[5]
9. To undergo a test or examination.^[5]
10. (intransitive, obsolete) To restrain oneself.^[5]

Word family

• sufrible
• insufrible
• sufrido
• sufrimiento
• sufridor

Related words

• preferir
• Latin sufferō
• Portuguese sofrer

Usage notes

Aragonese sufrir “to fry lightly” is a different verb, from suffrigere, recorded by Jordana;^[16] García de Diego gives it as a separate entry.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sufrir
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 333
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sufrir
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. sufrir
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. sufrir
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. souffrir
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3130
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. sofrer
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. suffero
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sufrir
12. ^ a b c Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. sufrir
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 180
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sufrir
15. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 419
16. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. suffrigere