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suffering

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Feelings of mental or physical pain.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

suhfering

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IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈsʌfɚɪŋ

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Experiencing pain; characterized by suffering.

noun

  1. The condition of someone who suffers; a state of pain or distress.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

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More ways to use suffering

  • “They provided aid to people suffering after the natural disaster.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

suffering humanity

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • sufferverbBase word

    Undergo or be subjected to.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • sufferernounPerson or profession

    A person suffering from an illness.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • long-sufferingnounCompound term

    Patient endurance of pain or unhappiness.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: someone who suffers

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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.