Tolerableness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The degree to which something can be put up with or endured without great difficulty or distress
2. The quality that allows an unpleasant situation or condition to be borne without becoming unbearable
3. How far something remains acceptable to bear, suffer through, or live with before it becomes intolerable

Etymology: "Tolerableness" is a plain English formation: the adjective "tolerable" with the suffix "-ness" attached. "Tolerable" itself came into English from Old French "tolerable," which descends from Latin "tolerabilis," meaning "bearable" or "endurable," built on "tolerare," "to bear or endure." The suffix does the work of turning that quality into a noun, so "tolerableness" names the state or degree of being bearable. The suffix has a long pedigree of its own. "-ness" traces back through Old English "-nes" and Proto-Germanic forms to very old Indo-European roots, where it was a means of making abstract nouns from adjectives. English has used it productively for well over a thousand years, which is why almost any adjective can take it on demand, and why "tolerableness" was never a special coinage but simply one more example of a process that is still running.

Synonyms: tolerability, bearableness, endurability

Antonyms: intolerableness, unbearableness