What does sufferance mean?
Sufferance is an uncommon formal noun meaning patient endurance or tolerance, especially of hardship or misfortune. It suggests bearing an unpleasant condition with restraint and perseverance rather than escaping or actively resolving it. The word can also mean permission or tacit consent, as when an action is tolerated by others; this sense is now largely confined to legal, historical, and archaic contexts. In modern English, “tolerance” is usually the clearer and more familiar substitute for the first sense, while “permission” or “consent” often serves the second. Although “sufferance” may sound like an ordinary vocabulary word, it is much less common than “suffering” and is chiefly encountered in elevated prose, formal writing, or older texts. Its distinctive value lies in combining endurance and permission in one word, with the intended sense depending heavily on context.
Patient endurance or tolerance of suffering, hardship, or inconvenience.
"The villagers showed remarkable sufferance during the long drought."
A formal and increasingly literary word; “patient endurance” is usually more natural in contemporary usage.
Permission or tacit consent, especially to do something without objection.
"The collection was kept in the garden by the sufferance of its owner."
Rare and chiefly legal, historical, or archaic.
The plural is possible but exceptionally uncommon.
"They endured their sufferances without complaint."
Sufferance captures the idea of enduring what cannot be changed—and, in older usage, quietly permitting what others might not.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does sufferance come from?
The word developed in Middle English from the stem “suffer” and the suffix “-ance,” which formed nouns indicating an action, condition, or resultant state. “Suffer” comes through Old French from Latin “sufferre,” meaning “to endure” or “to bear.” The same Latin root is reflected in English words including “suffering” and “insufferable,” although their modern forms developed along different grammatical paths.
Related word forms
How sufferance is actually used
Now uncommon and formal to archaic. The sense of permission survives mainly in legal and historical language, whereas the sense of patient endurance appears chiefly in literary writing.