Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To feel pain or distress; sustain loss, injury, harm, or punishment.
- v. To tolerate or endure evil, injury, pain, or death. See Synonyms at bear1.
- v. To appear at a disadvantage: "He suffers by comparison with his greater contemporary” ( Albert C. Baugh).
- v. To undergo or sustain (something painful, injurious, or unpleasant): "Ordinary men have always had to suffer the history their leaders were making” ( Herbert J. Muller).
- v. To experience; undergo: suffer a change in staff.
- v. To endure or bear; stand: would not suffer fools.
- v. To permit; allow: "They were not suffered to aspire to so exalted a position as that of streetcar conductor” ( Edmund S. Morgan).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To endure; support bravely or unflinchingly; sustain; bear up under.
- To be affected by; undergo; be acted on or influenced by; sustain; pass through.
- To feel or bear (what is painful, disagreeable, or distressing); submit to with distress or grief; undergo: as, to suffer acute bodily pain; to suffer grief of mind.
- To refrain from hindering; allow; permit; tolerate.
- To tolerate abstention from.
- Synonyms To feel, bear, experience, go through.
- Allow, Permit, Consent to, etc. See allow.
- To have endurance; bear evils bravely.
- To feel or undergo pain of body or mind; bear what is distressing or inconvenient.
- To be injured; sustain loss or damage.
- To undergo punishment; especially, to be put to death.
- To allow; permit.
- To wait; hold out.
Wiktionary
- v. To undergo hardship.
- v. To feel pain.
- v. To have a disease or condition.
- v. To become worse.
- v. To endure, undergo.
- v. To allow.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To feel, or endure, with pain, annoyance, etc.; to submit to with distress or grief; to undergo.
- v. To endure or undergo without sinking; to support; to sustain; to bear up under.
- v. To undergo; to be affected by; to sustain; to experience
- v. To allow; to permit; not to forbid or hinder; to tolerate.
- v. To feel or undergo pain of body or mind; to bear what is inconvenient.
- v. To undergo punishment; specifically, to undergo the penalty of death.
- v. To be injured; to sustain loss or damage.
WordNet 3.0
- v. be set at a disadvantage
- v. undergo (as of injuries and illnesses)
- v. feel pain or be in pain
- v. put up with something or somebody unpleasant
- v. experience (emotional) pain
- v. undergo or be subjected to
- v. feel physical pain
- v. be given to
- v. undergo or suffer
- v. get worse
- v. feel unwell or uncomfortable
Etymologies
- Middle English suffren, from Old French sufrir, from Vulgar Latin *sufferīre, from Latin sufferre : sub-, sub- + ferre, to carry; see bher-1 in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Speaking at the U.N. Conference on Climate Change in N.w York, President Obama says the world must address climate change now, or what he calls suffer irreversible catastrophe.”
“On one side are the proponents of individual responsibility, who believe that fat people suffer from a surplus of self-indulgence and a shortage of willpower.”
“About 90% of diabetics – 2.5 million people in the UK – suffer from the type 2 condition.”
The Guardian: Diabetes and obesity rates soar to 'shocking' levels
“Unfortunately, especially since the rise of the Internet, readers suffer from a breadth of choice that terrifies, and much of it (although poor) is free.”
“Unlike corporeal representatives, corporations wouldn't suffer from the ravages of age and infirmity.”
The Huffington Post: Murray Hill Inc.: We're Here, We're Corporate, Get Used To It!
“The GOP seems to suffer from the Reagan delusion that cutting taxes will spur the economy and back-fill for tax cuts.”
The Huffington Post: Stephen Herrington: Patty Murray Is the Right Choice for Both Washingtons
“So attempted defenses of Obama along these lines suffer from a fatal circularity.”
“Watching the less fortunate suffer is one of the greatest pleasures of wealth.”
“I saw a documentary about children in 3rd world countries who pick through electronic waste to make pennies for food and suffer from the toxicity of it.”
Books, Ebooks and the Environment « Tales from the Reading Room
“All parents suffer from the feeling that we should be doing ‘it’ differently, and it matters not at all if your child is disabled or not – that sense of always getting it wrong is imprinted into the parenting experience.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘suffer’.

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