Definition
To tolerate means to allow or permit something to occur without actively preventing it, without necessarily approving of it. In legal usage, toleration is a form of passive permission — distinct from express authorization — and carries consequences for liability, waiver, acquiescence, and the establishment of rights or conditions over time.
The term appears most frequently in legal contexts not as a term of art with a fixed statutory definition, but as a descriptive word in judicial reasoning, where courts must determine whether a party's failure to act constituted meaningful permission or merely passive inaction. A landlord who tolerates a tenant's unauthorized use, an employer who tolerates workplace conduct, or a licensor who tolerates unlicensed activity may each face legal consequences flowing directly from that toleration.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To allow or permit without explicit approval, usually if something is perceived as negative. Also, to bear or withstand.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To suffer to be, or to be done, without prohibition or hindrance; to allow or permit negatively, by not preventing; not to restrain; to put up with.
The legal and common meanings are closely aligned in their core sense, but diverge in consequence. In ordinary language, tolerating something carries no legal weight. In legal contexts, a party's toleration of a condition, use, or conduct can create reliance interests, establish course of conduct, constitute waiver of objection, or support adverse claims. The passive quality of toleration — permitting without approving — is precisely what makes it legally operative: it is the gap between knowledge and action that courts examine.
Common Confusion
Tolerate vs. Consent/Authorize: Toleration is not express permission and does not carry the full legal weight of consent or authorization. A party who tolerates conduct has not necessarily ratified it or agreed to it. Courts have found it necessary to distinguish between a property owner who tolerates a use and one who licenses or authorizes it, since the legal rights flowing from each differ substantially — particularly in the context of adverse possession, prescriptive easements, and employment discrimination law.
Tolerate vs. Acquiesce: These terms are often used interchangeably in older opinions, but some courts draw a distinction. Acquiescence typically implies a more knowing and prolonged acceptance that may generate stronger estoppel or waiver consequences. Toleration may suggest a more transient or less deliberate form of non-objection. Researchers consulting historical sources should not assume the two terms are always synonymous.
Why It Matters in Research
The legal significance of "tolerate" depends heavily on context and is highly fact-specific, which means it tends to appear in judicial reasoning rather than in statutory text. Researchers should be alert to several patterns:
In property law, toleration language frequently appears in adverse possession and prescriptive easement disputes. Whether an owner tolerated a use (suggesting permissive use, which defeats prescriptive claims) or merely failed to prevent it (suggesting the use was hostile) is a recurring distinction. Historical cases often use "tolerate," "suffer," and "permit" interchangeably, which can obscure the legal test being applied.
In employment law, whether an employer tolerated discriminatory or harassing conduct is central to vicarious liability and constructive notice analysis. The temporal dimension matters: toleration over a sustained period is treated differently from isolated inaction.
In contract and licensing disputes, toleration of a breach or of conduct outside the license scope raises waiver and estoppel arguments. Courts must determine whether a licensor's or contracting party's pattern of toleration modified the effective terms of the agreement.
In real estate transactions, tolerance has a more technical, numerical meaning in the federal mortgage disclosure context (see Encyclopedia Cross-Reference below) — a usage entirely separate from the common law toleration concept. Researchers working across real estate and common law contexts should be careful not to conflate these.
Bouvier's single citation (17 Blatchf. 330) signals that the term was not treated as requiring extensive doctrinal elaboration in classical legal dictionaries — it was understood as carrying its ordinary English meaning into legal analysis. This means researchers will find its significance embedded in judicial applications rather than treatise definitions.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's treats "tolerate" as essentially equivalent to its ordinary English meaning: to allow without hindrance, to permit without full approval, to suffer or endure. The entry is brief and definitional rather than analytical, reflecting the term's status as a descriptive word in legal reasoning rather than a technical term of art.
Webster's 1913 aligns closely with Bouvier's formulation, emphasizing the passive, negative character of toleration — permission by non-prevention rather than by affirmative grant. Both sources situate toleration below authorization on a spectrum of permission.
Neither historical source engages with the legal consequences of toleration, which have been developed almost entirely through case law rather than through dictionary or treatise definition. The absence of doctrinal elaboration in these sources is itself instructive: researchers should not expect to find the operative legal rules in dictionary entries but should use those entries to understand how courts employ the term when characterizing a party's conduct.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
For the technical, numerical meaning of "tolerance" as it applies to permissible variances between loan disclosures in residential real estate transactions, see: TRID Closing Disclosure — Timing Requirements, Tolerance Limits, and Comparison to Loan Estimate (The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia). Note that this usage is regulatory and quantitative, wholly distinct from the common law toleration concept addressed in this entry.