tolerate
Definitions
General English
- verb to allow something which you do not like to happen without complaining about it
- verb to allow something which you do not agree with to exist
- verb to accept the effect of a drug or a poison
Medical
- verb not to be affected by the unpleasant effects of something, especially not to experience bad effects from being exposed to something harmful
- verb not to react to a drug through having developed a resistance to it
Origin & History of “tolerate”
To
tolerate something is etymologically to ‘bear’ it. The
word comes
from the
past participle of Latin
tolerāre ‘bear, tolerate’.
this in
turn was formed from a
base *
tol- ‘lift, carry’, which
also underlies
English extol (15
th c.).
