ENGLISH
REFERENCE

insufferable

adj.
C1 Advanced US //ˌɪnˈsəfɝəbəɫ// UK //ɪnsˈʌfəɹəbəl// in·suf·fer·able

adj. extremely annoying or difficult to deal with. You use this to describe someone who is so rude or loud that you cannot stand them.

adj. extremely unpleasant or difficult to endure. Often describes a person's behavior or a situation that is intolerable due to arrogance or noise.


SIMPLE

The constant noise from the construction site is insufferable.

CONTEXTUAL

After three hours of his constant complaints, his insufferable behavior finally made the rest of the group lose their patience.

COMPLEX

The protagonist's insufferable arrogance serves as a central theme, eventually leading to his downfall as the other characters refuse to support his increasingly reckless decisions.

Synonyms
Origin

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.

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