Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To habituate to something undesirable, especially by prolonged subjection; accustom.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To establish by use; put into exercise or act; insure.
  • To use; adapt; qualify; practise; exercise; ply.
  • To toughen or harden by exercise; deaden the sensibility of; accustom; habituate: followed by to.
  • To pass in use; take or have effect; be applied; become available or serviceable: as, the land will inure to the heirs, or to the benefit of the heirs.
  • In law, to devolve as a right.

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

  • transitive verb To apply in use; to train; to discipline; to use or accustom till use gives little or no pain or inconvenience; to harden; to habituate; to practice habitually.
  • intransitive verb To pass into use; to take or have effect; to be applied; to serve to the use or benefit of.

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

  • verb cause to accept or become hardened to; habituate

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, back-formation from enured, customary, from in ure : in, in; see in + ure, use (from Old French euvre, uevre, work, from Latin opera, activity associated with work; see op- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From in- +‎ ure. See also the variant form enure.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word inure.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Inure (also enure) v. 1 trans. (usu. be inured to) accustom (someone) to something, esp. something unpleasant : these children have been inured to violence. 2 intrans. ( enure for/to) Law come into operation; take effect : a release given to one of two joint contractors inures to the benefit of both.

    ORIGIN late Middle English inure, enure, from an Anglo-Norman French phrase meaning ‘in use or practice,’ from en ‘in’ + Old French euvre ‘work’ (from Latin opera).

    Inured by the confirmation of his own inconsequence, he became resilient and truly indifferent. Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it mattered, the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse Things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening. (Roy 20)

    Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

    February 26, 2008

  • I have used this word routinely for years to describe my tolerance for my ex. I always have to define this word to the listener, but there is no better word in my opinion to describe my dealings with this person.

    May 11, 2009

  • I had believed myself fairly inured to foolishness after

    6 months for Reuter's in parched mad bloody Lebanon, but...

    - Peter Reading, Ukulele Music, 1985

    June 19, 2009

  • Indians have become Inured to power cuts.

    August 9, 2012

  • to live at very cold place, one should be inured to the severity of the weather.

    June 14, 2013

  • people are inured to condone the traffic woes.

    June 14, 2013