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Definition 2024


on_sufferance

on sufferance

English

Adverb

on sufferance (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) Unwillingly agreed to or barely tolerated.
    I wasn't whole-hearted about the decision but couldn't think of a better one, so went along with it on sufferance for the time being.
    • 1893, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate, chapter III:
      In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass. [] Strangers might enter the room, but they were made to feel that they were there on sufferance: they were received with distance and suspicion.

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