Meanings
- idiomaticUnwillingly 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.
1 more example
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.
1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC
Translations
Irish le caolchuid
- le caolchuidunwillingly agreed to
Russian скрепя́ се́рдце
- скрепя́ се́рдце (skrepjá sérdce)unwillingly agreed to
Cite this entry
on sufferance. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/on%20sufferance
“on sufferance.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/on%20sufferance. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “on sufferance,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/on%20sufferance.
Source: on sufferance on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.