SUFFER - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

SUFFERAuthored

The Law Mind • 1221 words

Definition

In legal usage, "suffer" carries two distinct meanings that operate in entirely separate contexts.

1. To permit or allow (the primary legal sense). To suffer an act to be done means to allow it to occur when one has the capacity to prevent it. It implies knowledge, willingness, and a conscious failure to intervene. In this sense, suffering is not passive ignorance — it presupposes awareness and the practical ability to stop the conduct. This usage appears throughout statutes and common law formulations: a landlord who suffers a tenant to remain creates a tenancy at sufferance; a licensee who suffers a nuisance to continue may be liable for it; a statute may prohibit an owner from suffering an animal to run at large.

2. To experience harm, loss, or injury (the secondary legal sense). In tort law and remedies, "suffer" describes what a plaintiff undergoes: to suffer damages, to suffer pain, to suffer a loss. This meaning supports recovery in damages actions and is the root of the compound phrase "pain and suffering." Here the term is closer to its ordinary English meaning, though its legal deployment is precise — suffering must be actual, not speculative, to ground a damages claim.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To undergo hardship; to feel pain; to endure; to allow.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To feel or endure with pain or grief; to undergo; to sustain; also, to allow or permit.

The ordinary English word "suffer" captures both meanings — endurance of pain and passive allowance — but treats them as equally current. In legal usage, however, the two meanings are structurally separated by context and consequence. When a statute uses "suffer," it almost always means permit or allow, carrying an implication of culpable knowledge. When a tort pleading uses "suffer," it almost always means experience of harm. Researchers who import the ordinary meaning of passive endurance into a statutory "suffer" will misread the legal standard, which requires capacity to prevent the act in question.

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Common Confusion

The permissive sense of "suffer" is easily conflated with mere failure to act or simple ignorance. The distinction is material: to suffer an act requires that the person had the ability to prevent it and chose not to. A property owner who does not know trespassers are on the land does not "suffer" their presence in the legal sense. Confusion also arises between "suffer" and "permit" — the historical sources treat them as synonymous, and for most practical purposes they are, but some jurisdictions have read "permit" to require affirmative authorization while reading "suffer" to require only knowing acquiescence. Researchers should not assume interchangeability without examining the specific statutory context.

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Why It Matters in Research

The bifurcated meaning of "suffer" creates a persistent trap in historical legal sources. Statutes from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries routinely used "suffer" in the permissive sense — licensing acts, nuisance statutes, liquor regulations, and animal control ordinances all deployed it this way. A researcher reading these instruments without recognizing the permissive meaning will systematically misinterpret the scope of liability they impose.

In the corpus, pay attention to two specific patterns. First, in property law materials, "suffer" generates the tenancy at sufferance — a holdover relationship arising when a landlord suffers a former tenant to remain after the lease expires. The word in the tenancy's name is doing legal work: the landlord has not affirmatively consented (which would create a new tenancy) but has not ejected the holdover either. That nuance distinguishes tenancy at sufferance from tenancy at will and affects both parties' rights significantly.

Second, in tort law materials, "suffer" appears in damages frameworks. Pain and suffering as a compensatory category grew out of this usage and is now treated as a term of art in its own right. Historical sources that discuss "suffering" in the damages context are anchoring the recovery in actual subjective experience, which creates valuation challenges that remain live in modern practice.

The temporal boundary matters: modern statutory drafters increasingly prefer "permit" or "allow" over "suffer" in new legislation, but older statutes on the books in many jurisdictions still use the archaic form. When the corpus presents a nineteenth-century ordinance alongside a modern court's interpretation of it, the interpretive history of "suffer" may explain apparent discontinuities.

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Historical Dictionary Support

The four historical sources are in strong agreement on the permissive meaning. All four define "suffer" as synonymous with "permit" — to approve, to consent, not to hinder — and all four emphasize the element of willingness of mind. Bouvier and Anderson both note that the term implies knowledge of what is to be done, which is the limiting principle: suffering is not the same as negligent unawareness.

Black's (both editions) and Bouvier cite the same foundational authority — Selleck v. Selleck, 19 Conn. 505 — for the proposition that suffering implies willingness of the mind. This convergence on a single case suggests the permissive definition had become settled by the mid-nineteenth century with relatively little doctrinal contest.

What the historical dictionaries do not address is the damages-context meaning of "suffer." The omission is telling: pain and suffering as a formal damages category was still developing during the period these dictionaries were compiled, and the word's role in that framework had not yet crystallized into a dictionary-worthy distinct definition. Researchers using historical dictionaries alone to understand "suffer" in a tort damages context will find the sources silent on the point.

Anderson's examples are useful for calibrating the permissive sense in practice: suffering guests to use forbidden games, suffering minors to drink in a licensed premises, suffering travel on a road — these illustrate that the standard was applied to regulatory and licensing contexts where knowledge and capacity to control were presumed from the actor's position.

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Jurisdictional Note

The permissive definition of "suffer" is consistent across common law jurisdictions, but its practical weight in statutory interpretation varies. Some courts read "suffer" as a more passive standard than "permit," requiring only knowing non-interference rather than affirmative authorization. Others treat the two words as fully interchangeable. Where a statute uses both words in the same provision, courts have occasionally read them to mark a distinction — researchers should examine the specific legislative history rather than relying on uniform synonymy.

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SUFFERmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

To suffer an act to be done, by a person who can prevent it, is to permit or consent to it; to approve of it, and not to hinder it It implies a willingness of the mind. 19 Conn. 505; 17 Blatchf. 330.

SUFFERmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

To suffer an act to be done, by a person who can prevent it, is to permit or consent to it; to approve of it, and not to hinder it. It implies a willingness of the mind. See In re Rome Planing Mill (C. C.) 96 Fed. 815; Wilson v. Nelson, 183 U. S. 191, 22 Sup. Ct. 74, 46 L. Ed. 147; Selleck vy. Selleck, 19 Conn. 505; Gregory vy. U. S., 10 Fed. Cas. 1197; In re Thomas (D. C.) 108 Fed. 274. In Spanish law. A small lot

SUFFERmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

그 ​1 الح Is synonymous with permit, q. v.; as, in a statute against “suffering” an animal to go at large. To suffer an act to be done, by a person who can prevent it, is to permit or consent to it, to approve it, not to hinder it. It implies willingness.4 Illustrative expressions are to "suffer" guests to use forbidden games, to "suffer" minors to drink liquor in a house, to "suffer" travel on the Lord's day.4 Includes knowledge of what is to be done, and intention that what is done is what is to be done.5 The words "grant, bargain, and sell," in a conveyance of a fee-simple, constitute a covenant against acts done or suffered by the grantor. "Suffered " here implies that the covenant is not confined to the voluntary acts of the grantor, and, therefore, includes a tax assessed during his ownership of title. All governmental burdens rest upon the principle of consent. In the sense of the Bankruptcy Act of 1867, a debtor "suffered" or "procured" his property to be seized under an execution, when, knowing himself to be insolvent, an admitted creditor, who had brought suit against him, and who, as he knew, would, unless he "Heirs," used instead of "successors," will not applied for the benefit of the act, secure a preference vitiate a deed. over other creditors, - proceeded in the effort to get a 3. To the office of President of the United judgment until one was actually obtained by the perStates, see PRESIDENT. 1 L. suc- (sub), next, after; cedere, to go, follow. 2 See Hunt v. Hunt, 37 Me. 344 (1853); Blake v. McCartney, 4 Cliff. 103 (1869). • See Blake v. McCartney, 4 Cliff. 103-6 (1889); United States v. Hunnewell, 13 F. R. 617, 618-22 (1882), cases; 2 Bl. Com. 516. Peters v. Lynchburg, 76 Va. 929 (1882): Eyre v. Jacob, 14 Gratt. 428 (1858), Lee, J. 2 Bl. Com. 430-31, 108, 126; 1 id. 468. • Union Canal Co. v. Young, 1 Whart. *425 (1836); Overseers v. Sears, 22 Pick. 132 (1839); Congregational Society v. Stark, 34 Vt. 249 (1861). St. Clair County Turnpike Co. v. Illinois, 96 U. S. 68 (1877). • Walker v. Colby Wringer Co., 14 F. R. 517 (1882). severance of the creditor and the default of the debtor." Within the meaning of that act, "suffer" did not import a demonstrative, active course, as did "pro- • Stephenson v. Short, 92 N. Y. 439 (1883); Mott v. Ackerman, ib. 548 (1883); Steinlein v. Halstead, 52 Wis. 291 (1881); 62 id. 96; 65 id. 570; 48 Ark. 81; 41 N. J. E. 97; 12 Wheat. 477. 2 Ackley v. Fish, 55 Vt. 20 (1883). 3 Jones v. Parker, 67 Tex. 81 (1886). 4 [Selleck v. Selleck, 19 Conn. 505-6 (1849), Church, C. J. See also Collinsville v. Scanland, 58 111. 221 (1871). * Gregory v. United States, 17 Blatch. 331 (1879). Shaffer v. Greer, 87 Pa. 375 (1878); Blossom v. Van Court, 34 Mo. 390 (1864). Buchanan v. Smith, 16 Wall. 277, 300-9 (1872).

SUFFERv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To feel, or endure, with pain, annoyance, etc.; to submit to with distress or grief; to undergo; as, to suffer pain of body, or grief of mind. To endure or undergo without sinking; to support; to sustain; to bear up under. Our spirit and strength entire, Strongly to suffer and support our pains. Milton. To undergo; to be affected by; to sustain; to experience; as, most substances suffer a change when long exposed to air and moisture; to suffer loss or damage. If your more ponderous and settled project May suffer alteration. Shak. To allow; to permit; not to forbid or hinder; to tolerate. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. Lev. xix. 17. I suffer them to enter and possess. Milton.

SUFFERv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To feel or undergo pain of body or mind; to bear what is inconvenient; as, we suffer from pain, sickness, or sorrow; we suffer with anxiety. O well for him whose will is strong! He suffers, but he will not suffer long. Tennyson. To undergo punishment; specifically, to undergo the penalty of death. The father was first condemned to suffer upon a day appointed, and the son afterwards the day following. Clarendon. To be injured; to sustain loss or damage. Public business suffers by private infirmities. Sir W. Temple.

sufferverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

To undergo hardship. | To feel pain. | To become worse. | To endure, undergo. | To allow.

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