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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
suffering
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
alleviate the problem/situation/suffering etc
▪ a new medicine to alleviate the symptoms of flu
be suffering from a coldformal (= have one)
▪ He was suffering from a cold and not his usual energetic self.
incalculable harm/damage/suffering etc
▪ The outbreak of hostilities will cause incalculable misery.
suffering from jet lag
▪ I’m suffering from jet lag but I’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.
unnecessary suffering
▪ She admitted causing the dog unnecessary suffering.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
great
▪ Indifference rather than intention may be the cause of greater human suffering, particularly with regard to corporate crime.
▪ This is understandable as, given the choice, no one wants to go through great suffering or pain.
▪ And this was the greatest suffering to him.
▪ Loving rebellious children unselfishly can bring great suffering to parents.
▪ The suffering involved in facing the enormity of man's potential for sin is the only cure for the greater suffering.
▪ Such debris from the practice of fishing leads to great suffering among wildlife and also among domesticated animals.
human
▪ Debt and the destruction of war have brought major economic setbacks, aside from damage to social services and human suffering.
▪ Few men can have done more to relieve human suffering, or shown less interest in profiting from the process.
▪ Indifference rather than intention may be the cause of greater human suffering, particularly with regard to corporate crime.
▪ There is no suggestion that the primary ethical task is to relieve the immense weight of human suffering. 11.
▪ His photographs and descriptions convey concern for the human suffering resulting from natural disasters.
▪ Indeed, it would be seen as a major source of avoidable and illegal human suffering.
▪ This reaction was based on the understanding that atomic bombs cause widespread death and destruction and extreme human suffering.
▪ Each country was affected by the unprecedented military build up, the collapse of the precarious economy and the human suffering.
unnecessary
▪ He had carried out a deliberate act causing unnecessary suffering and cruelty.
▪ But in Leeds High Court, a vet denied the mink endured unnecessary suffering.
▪ They are both accused of fourteen offences of causing unnecessary suffering to animals.
▪ Woodruff admitted causing unnecessary suffering when she appeared before Swindon Magistrates.
▪ But any conscious attempt to disregard this proportionality would inflict unnecessary losses and suffering.
▪ Doctors were unable to treat them unless and until their parents had been traced and this could cause unnecessary suffering.
▪ He denied two charges of abandoning the pets in circumstances likely to cause them unnecessary suffering on October 23 last year.
■ VERB
alleviate
▪ In the old, inherited sense fundamentalism is a good thing because it alleviates pain and suffering.
▪ May we play our small part in helping to alleviate the poverty and suffering of the world.
▪ She is the chairman of the Animal Defenders Youth Group, whose aim is to expose and alleviate animal suffering.
cause
▪ He had carried out a deliberate act causing unnecessary suffering and cruelty.
▪ They are both accused of fourteen offences of causing unnecessary suffering to animals.
▪ And these self-centred ways automatically cause suffering and, ultimately, curtailment of the activity.
▪ Woodruff admitted causing unnecessary suffering when she appeared before Swindon Magistrates.
▪ Aquino's economic cutbacks, imposed on her for all the right reasons, have caused considerable suffering.
▪ Doctors were unable to treat them unless and until their parents had been traced and this could cause unnecessary suffering.
▪ He denied two charges of abandoning the pets in circumstances likely to cause them unnecessary suffering on October 23 last year.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ It is hard to imagine the pain and suffering they went through.
▪ Reporters described the suffering they had seen in the war zone.
▪ The earthquake has caused massive damage and a great deal of human suffering.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Because of this, suffering is less of a threat to happiness, while it spells death to the pleasure-seeking life.
▪ But any conscious attempt to disregard this proportionality would inflict unnecessary losses and suffering.
▪ Developing your body and your soul, exercise and suffering, were both facets of a supremely masculine fortification of the spirit.
▪ Like penicillin, cephalosporin has saved the lives or relieved the suffering of countless patients and animals world-wide.
▪ Now the milestone has been passed - and there is still no end in sight to the slaughter and suffering.
▪ The chief effect is to highlight the horror of the desolate and pre-human world of purposeless suffering.
▪ We have often a choice: self pity or spiritual power through suffering.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Suffering

Suffering \Suf"fer*ing\, n. The bearing of pain, inconvenience, or loss; pain endured; distress, loss, or injury incurred; as, sufferings by pain or sorrow; sufferings by want or by wrongs. ``Souls in sufferings tried.''
--Keble.

Suffering

Suffer \Suf"fer\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Suffered; p. pr. & vb. n. Suffering.] [OE. suffren, soffren, OF. sufrir, sofrir, F. souffrir, (assumed) LL. sofferire, for L. sufferre; sub under + ferre to bear, akin to E. bear. See Bear to support.]

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

    Syn: To permit; bear; endure; support; sustain; allow; admit; tolerate. See Permit.

Suffering

Suffering \Suf"fer*ing\, a. Being in pain or grief; having loss, injury, distress, etc. -- Suf"fer*ing*ly, adv.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
suffering

"patient enduring of pain, inconvenience, loss, etc.," mid-14c.; "undergoing of punishment, affliction, etc.," late 14c., verbal noun from suffer (v.). Meaning "a painful condition, pain felt" is from late 14c.

Wiktionary
suffering
  1. Experiencing pain.(jump experiencing pain s) n. The condition of someone who suffers; a state of pain or distress. v

  2. (present participle of suffer English)

WordNet
suffering
  1. adj. troubled by pain or loss; "suffering refugees"

  2. very unhappy; full of misery; "he felt depressed and miserable"; "a message of hope for suffering humanity"; "wretched prisoners huddled in stinking cages" [syn: miserable, wretched]

  3. n. a state of acute pain [syn: agony, excruciation]

  4. misery resulting from affliction [syn: woe]

  5. psychological suffering; "the death of his wife caused him great distress" [syn: distress, hurt]

  6. feelings of mental or physical pain [syn: hurt]

Wikipedia
Suffering

Tragic mask on the façade of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm

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Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of affective phenomena. The opposite of suffering is pleasure, or happiness.

Suffering is often categorized as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and frequency of occurrence usually compound that of intensity. Attitudes toward suffering may vary widely, in the sufferer or other people, according to how much it is regarded as avoidable or unavoidable, useful or useless, deserved or undeserved.

Suffering occurs in the lives of sentient beings in numerous manners, and often dramatically. As a result, many fields of human activity are concerned with some aspects of suffering. These aspects may include the nature of suffering, its processes, its origin and causes, its meaning and significance, its related personal, social, and cultural behaviors, its remedies, management, and uses.

Usage examples of "suffering".

A boy, suffering from abscess under the trochanter, was operated on for its relief.

Now fourteen, she had been abused by West and his wife for six years, regularly supplying him with sexual favors, and suffering physical abuse from his wife with equal regularity.

While the lack of physical adaptitude may be the occasion of much suffering and unhappiness in such unions, especially on the part of the wife, being even productive of most serious local disease, and sometimes of sterility, it is in childbirth that the greatest risk and suffering is incurred.

He was in the cedar parlour, that adjoined the great hall, laid upon a couch, and suffering a degree of anguish from his wound, which few persons could have disguised, as he did.

In many such cases those people are deemed by the law to be suffering from a mental disease and are often adjudged insane.

Taking hold gently of one of her hands, I told her that she had ignited in my soul a devouring flame, that I adored her, and that, unless some hope was left to me of finding her sensible to my sufferings, I was determined to fly away from her for ever.

I cannot contravene the order of knights errant, about whom I know it is true, not having read anything to the contrary, that they never paid for their lodging or anything else in any inn where they stayed, because whatever welcome they receive is owed to them as their right and privi-lege in return for the unbearable hardships they suffer as they seek adventures by night and by day, in winter and in summer, on foot and on horseback, suffering thirst and hunger, heat and cold, and exposed to all the inclemencies of heaven and all the discomforts on earth.

I saw the Common Sense Medical Adviser advertised and sent for the book and studied its contents carefully, and came to the conclusion that I was suffering from varicocele.

Greek Revolution and that his own advocacy of the cause would have to focus more on stimulating private American support and stronger popular sympathy for the suffering Greek people.

Clem for something of this kind, yet he had managed things so well that up to the time of his departure she had not been able to remark a single suspicious circumstance, unless, indeed, it were the joyous affectionateness with which he continued to behave, She herself had been passing through a time of excitement and even of suffering.

Everywhere Danlo looked, the faces of the man-swarm were bright with wonder and hope: one hundred thousand faces afire with longing, with the overwhelming need to be released from their suffering.

Our cognitive sciences are themselves suffering from an agnosia essentially similar to Dr P.

Knowledge of alcoholism would have saved me an awful lot of suffering.

Driving along in daylight, however, Alec could see all too clearly how Seregil was suffering.

An alienist came from Berlin and said I was suffering from female castration complex.