What does tolerance mean?
Tolerance means accepting, allowing, or enduring something without hostility or excessive resistance. In everyday and civic life, it most often describes the willingness to respect people whose beliefs, identities, customs, or opinions differ from one's own. The word can imply fairness and restraint, but it does not necessarily mean approval of another person's conduct. In technical contexts, tolerance refers to the capacity of a person, material, or system to withstand a condition or to a permitted range of variation. As a verb, tolerance means to allow something without prohibiting it or to bear a difficult experience. Although its modern ethical associations are especially important, the word's older sense of endurance or patience remains familiar. Tolerance is a useful term because it distinguishes acceptance of difference from indifference: it asks people to recognize others' right to exist or act without requiring agreement.
The willingness to accept differing opinions, practices, or people; the capacity to endure something difficult; or, in technical use, the permitted range of variation or the ability to withstand a condition.
"The community was known for its tolerance of people who lived and worked in different ways."
The social sense is the dominant modern use. In technical writing, tolerance may describe a permitted measurement range or a system's capacity to withstand stress.
To allow something without prohibiting or objecting to it, or to endure it.
"The chair tolerated brief interruptions from members of the audience."
This use is less frequent than the noun, especially in informal writing, and can sound formal in social contexts.
The plural is used for different instances, forms, or degrees of tolerance, especially in technical or formal contexts.
"The machine was built to accommodate small tolerances in the dimensions of its components."
From a Latin word meaning to bear or endure, tolerance developed into one of the central ideas of civic life: living with people whose convictions differ from our own.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does tolerance come from?
The word comes from Latin tolerantia, meaning endurance or patience, which was derived from tolerare, “to bear, endure, or tolerate.” English borrowed the word in the late medieval period, initially in the sense of endurance or sufferance, and later developed its modern associations with accepting or allowing difference. Related English words such as tolerate, tolerable, intolerant, and intolerable come from the same Latin root. The concept of bearing difficult conditions also underlies the word's technical meanings.
Related word forms
How tolerance is actually used
In social and political contexts, tolerance generally describes accepting people or practices that one may not approve or even understand. It usually implies restraint or fair treatment rather than approval. In technical contexts, it can refer to the amount of variation a system can withstand. The verb is less common than the noun and is often formal.
Easily confused with tolerance
Tolerance is the attitude or policy of accepting difference, whereas tolerant is the adjective describing a person or approach that is accepting or patient.