Word.ws English Dictionary

sufferaunce

sufferaunce is the obsolete form of sufferance.

Meaning of sufferance

Noun

sufferance (countable and uncountable, plural sufferances)

  1. (archaic) Endurance, especially patiently, of pain or adversity.
    • At length when as he ſaw her haſtie heat / Abate, and panting breath begin to fayle, / He through long ſufferãce growing now more great, / Roſe in his strength, and gan her freſh aſſayle, [...]1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 16, page 84
  2. Acquiescence or tacit compliance with some circumstance, behavior, or instruction.
    • [M]oſt wretched man, / That to affections does the bridle lend; / In their beginning they are weake and wan, / But ſoone through ſuff'rance growe to fearefull end; [...]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 34, page 241
  3. (archaic) Suffering; pain, misery.
    • The sufferances which simply touch us in minde, doe much lesse afflict me, then most men [...].1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 37, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
  4. (obsolete) Loss; damage; injury.
    • The deſperate Tempeſt has ſo bang'd the Turke, / That their deſignement halts; Another ſhippe of Venice hath ſeene / A greeuous wracke and ſufferance / On moſt part of the Fleete.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragœdy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. […] (First Quarto), London: […] N[icholas] O[kes] for Thomas Walkley, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act...
  5. (UK, historical) A permission granted by the customs authorities for the shipment of goods.

Forms of sufferaunce

pluralsufferaunces

Questions about sufferaunce

What is sufferaunce the obsolete form of?
Sufferaunce is the obsolete form of sufferance.

Words near sufferaunce in the dictionary

  1. sufferages
  2. sufferance
  3. sufferances
  4. sufferation
  5. sufferations
  6. sufferaunce
  7. sufferaunces
  8. suffered
  9. suffered fools gladly
  10. suffered from
  11. suffered in silence

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sufferaunce (page history and authors); sufferance (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “sufferaunce.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sufferaunce. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.