suffer
to undergo or feel pain or distress: The patient is still suffering.
to sustain injury, disadvantage, or loss: One's health suffers from overwork. The business suffers from lack of capital.
to undergo a penalty, as of death: The traitor was made to suffer on the gallows.
to endure pain, disability, death, etc., patiently or willingly.
to undergo, be subjected to, or endure (pain, distress, injury, loss, or anything unpleasant): to suffer the pangs of conscience.
to undergo or experience (any action, process, or condition): to suffer change.
to tolerate or allow: I do not suffer fools gladly.
Origin of suffer
1Other words for suffer
Other words from suffer
- suf·fer·a·ble, adjective
- suf·fer·a·ble·ness, noun
- suf·fer·a·bly, adverb
- suf·fer·er, noun
- non·suf·fer·a·ble, adjective
- non·suf·fer·a·ble·ness, noun
- non·suf·fer·a·bly, adverb
- outsuffer, verb (used with object)
- pre·suf·fer, verb
- un·suf·fer·a·ble, adjective
- un·suf·fer·a·ble·ness, noun
- un·suf·fer·a·bly, adverb
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use suffer in a sentence
You have to suffer on the path in the near term, so that you make money over the next two, three years.
The biggest risks and opportunities for investors in 2021 | matthewheimer | November 20, 2020 | FortuneNext, the adolescents answered 13 questions designed to figure out if they suffered from depression.
Warning! Junk foods can harm a teen’s brain | Sharon Oosthoek | November 19, 2020 | Science News For StudentsEven for the majority of us who don’t suffer from something like misophonia or phonophobia, it’s still easy — at least I’d argue it’s easy — to appreciate that noise can generate strong emotions.
Please Get Your Noise Out of My Ears (Ep. 439) | Stephen J. Dubner | November 12, 2020 | FreakonomicsA second juvenile suffered an apparent gunshot wound inside a home in the 10300 block of Steamboat Landing Lane in Burke on Wednesday afternoon, police said.
One juvenile killed, another wounded in Fairfax County shootings | Justin Jouvenal, Dana Hedgpeth | November 11, 2020 | Washington PostThe 45th Infantry Division was still reeling from the discovery of 39 boxcars containing thousands of corpses outside the camp, and from hearing the accounts of surviving inmates of the atrocities they had suffered since the camp had opened, in 1933.
Depression is often a laborious uphill struggle for the sufferer and their loved ones.
The Burden Robin Williams Carried: Diagnosed With Parkinson’s and Depression | Dr. Anand Veeravagu, MD, Tej Azad | August 15, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe sufferer determines that death is the only way to cease the pain.
The Professor and the Doomsday Clock: ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ & Signs of John Kennedy Toole’s Suicide | Cory MacLauchlin | December 17, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTChief Justice Rehnquist, who oversaw the Clinton impeachment, was, like Perry, a lower-back-pain sufferer.
But many migraines come on completely mysteriously, no matter how careful a sufferer has been to avoid triggers.
In the past, people largely attributed epidemics to God or nature or the individual sufferer.
It was he who deserved punishment—not the sufferer with his calamities imposed upon him by his erring sire.
They obeyed, and the third day after brought to us the sufferer, whose life they had despaired of, in a half-dying condition.
Portugal is this time the scene of the disaster, the sufferer being the Baquet Theatre in Oporto.
Asbestos | Robert H. JonesHe was the friend of Laud, by whose influence he was promoted, and by whose fall he was a great sufferer.
The Every Day Book of History and Chronology | Joel MunsellWhen together the law presumes she acted from his coercion, he therefore must be the sufferer, while she escapes.
Putnam's Handy Law Book for the Layman | Albert Sidney Bolles
British Dictionary definitions for suffer
/ (ˈsʌfə) /
to undergo or be subjected to (pain, punishment, etc)
(tr) to undergo or experience (anything): to suffer a change of management
(intr) to be set at a disadvantage: this author suffers in translation
to be prepared to endure (pain, death, etc): he suffers for the cause of freedom
(tr) archaic to permit (someone to do something): suffer the little children to come unto me
suffer from
to be ill with, esp recurrently
to be given to: he suffers from a tendency to exaggerate
Origin of suffer
1usage For suffer
Derived forms of suffer
- sufferer, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with suffer
see not suffer fools gladly.
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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