tolerance

Etymology

From Middle French tolerance, from Latin tolerantia (“endurance”), from tolerans, present participle of Latin tolerō (“endure”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈtɒl.ə.ɹəns/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈtɑ.lə.ɹəns/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈtɔl.ə.ɹəns/

Noun

tolerance (countable and uncountable, plural tolerances)

1. (uncountable, obsolete) The ability to endure pain or hardship; endurance. [15th–19th c.]
2. (uncountable) The ability or practice of tolerating; an acceptance of or patience with the beliefs, opinions or practices of others; a lack of bigotry. [from 18th c.]
   • 2019 July 21, Dmitry Shumsky, “When Zionism imagined Jewish nationalism without supremacy”, in +972 Magazine:

     Both [Ze'ev] Jabotinsky and [David] Ben-Gurion also wrote songs of praise to the Ottoman Empire, its tolerance toward ethnic minorities in general — and to Jews in particular — as well as to the democratic changes it was undergoing.

3. (uncountable) The ability of the body (or other organism) to resist the action of a poison, to cope with a dangerous drug or to survive infection by an organism. [from 19th c.]
4. (countable) The variation or deviation from a standard, especially the maximum permitted variation in an engineering measurement. [from 20th c.]

   Our customers can generally accept ten times the tolerance which we can achieve in our machining operations.

5. (uncountable) The ability of the body to accept a tissue graft without rejection. [from 20th c.]

Verb

tolerance (third-person singular simple present tolerances, present participle tolerancing, simple past and past participle toleranced)

1. To design or engineer a material to a specified tolerance.

References

• tolerance on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Further reading

• “tolerance”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “tolerance”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “tolerance”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• coeternal, neorectal

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈtolɛrant͡sɛ]

Noun

tolerance f

1. tolerance (the ability or practice of tolerating)
2. tolerance (permitted deviation from standard)

Further reading

• “tolerance”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “tolerance”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989