suffer
verb
Simple meaning
Undergo or be subjected to.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
suhferSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsʌfɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Undergo (as of injuries and illnesses)
“She suffered a fracture in the accident.”
Undergo or be subjected to
Feel pain or be in pain
Feel unwell or uncomfortable
“She is suffering from the hot weather.”
Undergo or suffer
Experience (emotional) pain
“Every time her husband gets drunk, she suffers.”
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Undergo (as of injuries and illnesses)
Used this way, suffer is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“She suffered a fracture in the accident.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- get , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Undergoverb
“She suffered a fracture in the accident.”
Feelverb
“She is suffering from the hot weather.”
Experienceverb
“Every time her husband gets drunk, she suffers.”
More ways to use suffer
- “Every time her husband gets drunk, she suffers.”verb
- “She is suffering from the hot weather.”verb
- “She suffered a fracture in the accident.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A person suffering from an illness.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Patient endurance of pain or unhappiness.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.