SUFFER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Suffer

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/sˈəfər/ Listen

verb

Suffer v. t. (past & past part. suffered; pres. part. suffering)

1.

To feel, or endure, with pain, annoyance, etc.; to submit to with distress or grief; to undergo; as, to suffer pain of body, or grief of mind.

2.

To endure or undergo without sinking; to support; to sustain; to bear up under. "Our spirit and strength entire, Strongly to suffer and support our pains."

3.

To undergo; to be affected by; to sustain; to experience; as, most substances suffer a change when long exposed to air and moisture; to suffer loss or damage. "If your more ponderous and settled project May suffer alteration."

4.

To allow; to permit; not to forbid or hinder; to tolerate. "Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him." "I suffer them to enter and possess."

Synonyms: To permit; bear; endure; support; sustain; allow; admit; tolerate. See Permit.

Suffer v. i.

1.

To feel or undergo pain of body or mind; to bear what is inconvenient; as, we suffer from pain, sickness, or sorrow; we suffer with anxiety. "O well for him whose will is strong! He suffers, but he will not suffer long."

2.

To undergo punishment; specifically, to undergo the penalty of death. "The father was first condemned to suffer upon a day appointed, and the son afterwards the day following."

3.

To be injured; to sustain loss or damage. "Public business suffers by private infirmities."

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Etymology of 'Suffer'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Suffer" Quotes from Famous Books

... comes Albanact's bloody ghost, To bring a corsive to our miseries? Is't not enough to suffer shameful flight, But we must be tormented now with ghosts, With ...

— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... neither can feel or be felt, see or be seen, move or be moved, change or be changed, neither do or suffer corporally, cannot certainly be eaten corporally; but so they affirm concerning the body of our blessed Lord; it cannot do or suffer corporally in the Sacrament, therefore it cannot be eaten corporally, any more than a man can chew a spirit, or eat a meditation, ...

— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... Europe, there is not a nation on the Continent which would not be bankrupt in a single campaign, provided England closed her purse. In the last war she was the general paymaster: but that system is at an end; and if she is wise, she will never suffer another shilling of hers to drop into the pocket ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... information to the Conde branch of the Bourbons, and who afterwards audaciously and sacrilegiously read the sentence of death on the chief of that family, on his good and legitimate King, Louis XVI. It can neither be called dignity nor prudence in the Cabinet of Denmark to suffer this regicide to serve as a point of rally to sedition and innovation; to be the official propagator of revolutionary doctrines, and an official protector of all proselytes and sectaries of this ...

— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... narration, and if the celebratinge the memory of eminent and extraordinary persons, and transmittinge ther greate virtues for the imitation of posterity, be one of the principle endes and dutyes of History, it will not be thought impertinent in this place to remember a losse, which noe tyme will suffer to be forgotten, and no successe or good fortune could repayre; In this unhappy battell was slayne the L'd Viscounte Falkelande, a person of such prodigious partes of learninge and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetenesse ...

— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

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