Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To feel pain or distress; sustain injury or harm.
  • intransitive verb To have a specified shortcoming or weakness.
  • intransitive verb To sustain a loss, setback, or decline in effectiveness; become worse.
  • intransitive verb To appear at a disadvantage.
  • intransitive verb To experience, undergo, or feel (something painful, injurious, or unpleasant).
  • intransitive verb To undergo or be subjected to (a negative experience or development).
  • intransitive verb To put up with; tolerate: synonym: endure.
  • intransitive verb To permit; allow.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 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.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To feel or undergo pain of body or mind; to bear what is inconvenient.
  • intransitive verb To undergo punishment; specifically, to undergo the penalty of death.
  • intransitive verb To be injured; to sustain loss or damage.
  • transitive verb To feel, or endure, with pain, annoyance, etc.; to submit to with distress or grief; to undergo.
  • transitive verb To endure or undergo without sinking; to support; to sustain; to bear up under.
  • transitive verb To undergo; to be affected by; to sustain; to experience
  • transitive verb To allow; to permit; not to forbid or hinder; to tolerate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To undergo hardship.
  • verb intransitive To feel pain.
  • verb intransitive To have a disease or condition.
  • verb intransitive To become worse.
  • verb transitive To endure, undergo.
  • verb transitive, archaic To allow.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb be set at a disadvantage
  • verb undergo (as of injuries and illnesses)
  • verb feel pain or be in pain
  • verb put up with something or somebody unpleasant
  • verb experience (emotional) pain
  • verb undergo or be subjected to
  • verb feel physical pain
  • verb be given to
  • verb undergo or suffer
  • verb get worse
  • verb feel unwell or uncomfortable

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English suffren, from Old French sufrir, from Vulgar Latin *sufferīre, from Latin sufferre : sub-, sub- + ferre, to carry; see bher- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English suffren, from Anglo-Norman suffrir, from Latin suffero ("to offer, hold up, bear, suffer"), from sub- ("up, under") + ferō ("I carry"), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to bear, carry”).

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