endurable

comparative more endurable · superlative most endurable · alternative indurable

1. Able to be endured; tolerable; bearable.

   Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took all of the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet.

   1970, Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, New York: Vintage, published 2007, page 26

   4 more examples

   A sharp keen wind blew dead against us; a hard frost prevailed on shore; and the cold was most severe. Yet the air was so intensely clear, and dry, and bright, that the temperature was not only endurable, but delicious.

   1842, Charles Dickens, chapter II, in American Notes for General Circulation. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC

   As his bodily strength increased, and his health, considerably impaired by inward suffering, improved, the trouble of his soul became more endurable—and in some measure to endure is to conquer and destroy.

   1871, George Macdonald, “The Broken Swords”, in The Cruel Painter and Other Stories, London: Strahan & Co., page 191

   And when belief was dead and God a myth, / And the world seemed a wandering mote of evil, / Endurable only by its impermanence, / And all the planets perishable urns / Of perishable ashes, to you alone I clung / Amid the unspeakable loneliness of the universe.

   1919, J. C. Squire, “Envoi”, in Poems: First Series, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, page 115

   A novelist can run on and on (and, alas, does!). He can perversely take twenty words to describe the Apocalypse and fifty pages to chronicle the hero's shaving, and still be endurable, because the reader can always slap the book shut and continue it only when he is in the mood.

   1933, Sinclair Lewis, “The Art of Dramatization”, in Harry E. Maule, Melville H. Cane, editors, The Man from Main Street: Selected Essays and Other Writings: 1904-1950, New York: Pocket Books, published 1963, page 221

   Synonyms: portable, sufferable, survivable, abideable, bearable, livable, portable, sufferable

2. Capable of enduring; likely to endure; durable.

   Albert E. Brum was born into one of Petawawa’s founding families who eventually established one of the area’s most endurable businesses.

   2012 September 29, Sean Chase, “Surviving Devil's Brigade member to receive Congressional Gold Medal”, in The Toronto Sun

   1 more example

   […] the agriculturist would outlive the struggle, and his property be as fixed and endurable as the oaks which were planted by his ancestors.

   1834 March 21, John Tyrell, Hansard, archived from the original on 12 Feb 2019

   Synonyms: abiding, long-lasting, persistent, abiding, chronic, continuate, diuturnal, durable