English

Alternative forms

• indurable (archaic)

Adjective

endurable ‎(comparative more endurable, superlative most endurable)

1. Able to be endured; tolerable; bearable.
   • 1842, Charles Dickens, American Notes, Chapter II,

     A sharp keen wind blew dead against us; a hard frost prevailed on shore; and the cold was most severe. Yet the air was so intensely clear, and dry, and bright, that the temperature was not only endurable, but delicious.

   • 1871, George Macdonald, "The Broken Swords" in The Cruel Painter and Other Stories, London: Strahan & Co., p. 191,

     As his bodily strength increased, and his health, considerably impaired by inward suffering, improved, the trouble of his soul became more endurable—and in some measure to endure is to conquer and destroy.

   • 1919, J. C. Squire, "Envoi" in Poems: First Series, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 115,

     And when belief was dead and God a myth, / And the world seemed a wandering mote of evil, / Endurable only by its impermanence, / And all the planets perishable urns / Of perishable ashes, to you alone I clung / Amid the unspeakable loneliness of the universe.

   • 1933, Sinclair Lewis, "The Art of Dramatization" in The Man from Main Street: Selected Essays and Other Writings: 1904-1950, edited by Harry E. Maule and Melville H. Cane, New York: Pocket Books, 1963, p. 221,

     A novelist can run on and on (and, alas, does!). He can perversely take twenty words to describe the Apocalypse and fifty pages to chronicle the hero's shaving, and still be endurable, because the reader can always slap the book shut and continue it only when he is in the mood.

   • 1970, Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, New York: Vintage, 2007, p. 26,

     Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took all of the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet.

2. Capable of enduring; likely to endure; durable.
   • 1834, John Tyrell, Hansard, 21 March, 1834,

     […] the agriculturist would outlive the struggle, and his property be as fixed and endurable as the oaks which were planted by his ancestors.

   • 2012, Sean Chase, "Surviving Devil's Brigade member to receive Congressional Gold Medal," The Toronto Sun, 29 September, 2012,

     Albert E. Brum was born into one of Petawawa’s founding families who eventually established one of the area’s most endurable businesses.

Derived terms

• endurability
• endurableness
• endurably

Translations

French

Etymology

endurer ‎(“to endure”) +‎ -able

Adjective

endurable m, f ‎(plural endurables)

1. endurable, which can be endured