insufferable
/ɪnˈsʌfəɹəb(ə)l/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.79 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
5
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Not sufferable; very difficult or impossible to endure; intolerable, unbearable.
Example Sentences
- "No, his good Meen, his Youth, and blooming Face / Tempt him to think, that vvith a better grace / Himſelf might ſit, and thou ſupply his place. / Behold there yet remains, vvhich muſt be born, / Proud Servants more inſufferable Scorn."
- "She is sensible that a vain person is the most insufferable creature living in a well-bred assembly."
- "This is insufferable! My dearest friend, I was never so enraged before, and must relieve myself by writing to you, who I know will enter into all my feelings."
- ""She had better have stayed at home," cried Elizabeth; "perhaps she meant well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see too little of one's neighbours. Assistance is impossible; condolence, insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied.""
- "He heard and saw, and sought to free / His strain'd eye from the sight: / But Heaven's high magic bound it there, / Still gazing, though untaught to bear / Th' insufferable light."
- "It was of course familiar to me that Saltram was incapable of keeping the engagements which, after their separation, he had entered into with regard to his wife, a deeply wronged, justly resentful, quite irreproachable and insufferable person."
Etymology
From Late Middle English insufferable (“unbearably painful, intolerable”), and then either: * from in- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + sufferable, souffrable (“bearable, endurable, tolerable; allowable, permissible; able to or willing to bear hardship; forbearing, long-suffering; calm, self-restrained, slow to anger; capable of suffering”) (from Anglo-Norman sufferable, souffrable, and Old French souffrable, suffrable (“sufferable, tolerable”)); or * from Old French insouffrable (“which cannot be endured or suffered; something insufferable or unendurable”) (now dialectal), from in- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + souffrable, suffrable. From Old French souffrable, suffrable are derived from Medieval Latin sufferābilis, from Latin sufferre + -ābilis (suffix meaning ‘able or worthy to be’); while sufferre is the present active infinitive of sufferō, subferō (“to bear or carry under; to bear, endure, suffer, undergo”), from sub- (prefix meaning ‘below, under’) + ferō (“to bear, carry; to endure, suffer, tolerate”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to bear, carry”)). The English word is analysable as in- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + sufferable.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Prefix: in-
- Root: *bʰer-, insufferable, sufferable, souffrable, insouffrable, sufferābilis
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɪnˈsʌfəɹəb(ə)l/
- British English: /ɪnˈsʌfəɹəb(ə)l/
Inflected Forms
more insufferable (comparative)
most insufferable (superlative)