tolerable Hear it!

tolerable Definition

tol·er·able (tälər ə bəl)

adjective

  1. that can be tolerated; endurable
  2. fairly good; passable
  3. Informal in reasonably good health

Etymology: ME tollerabill < MFr tolérable < L tolerabilis

tolerable Related Forms
tol′·er·abil·ity noun tol·er·ably adverb
tolerable Synonyms

tolerable

modif.

  1. Bearable

    endurable, sufferable, sustainable; see bearable.

  2. Passable

    fairly good, adequate, mediocre, average; see common 1, poor 2.

tolerable Usage Examples

Adjective complement with noun phrase

  • make: We managed to make a serious situation more tolerable than we had ever expected previously.
  • find: Today I inspected our Karelian fortifications and on the whole found the situation tolerable.

Modifies a noun

  • intake: These would be the levels to be achieved in order to bring human exposure below the tolerable weekly intake of 14 pg dioxins.
  • standard: The amount of personal effort needed to keep up a tolerable standard is really quite, quite, trivial.
  • limit: The annual rate of soil loss in the SALT farm is 3.4 metric tons per hectares, well within the tolerable limits.
  • level: These foods should be kept to a tolerable level.
  • error: No packages are allowed to contain less than the nominal quantity by more than twice the tolerable negative error.
  • state: Additions had been made in 1827 to Kings College buildings which were in a tolerable state of repair.

Modifying Another Word

  • barely: Mere addition paradox: is a large population living barely tolerable lives better than a small happy population?
  • quite: The existing 2 per cent trend rate of UK productivity advance is in fact quite tolerable.
  • about: My view is that the present balance is just about tolerable given the undemocratic nature of the upper house.
  • even: It is wrong to allow the wealthy to believe that the rest of society finds their existence desirable or even tolerable.
  • very: The House, tho small, is very tolerable ' .
  • just: It was very warm, but a cool wind coming down the valley kept things just tolerable.

Used with adjective complement

  • remain: Climate change will accelerate uncontrollably; billions of people will die this century and only the Arctic regions will remain tolerable for humans.
  • become: And the reading has started to grow on me and become more tolerable.
  • find: This might have been found more tolerable had it been due to honest competition.
  • make: There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.
  • seem: It probably made the hardships of Grantham seem more tolerable.
  • consider: The XLink AUP ( Acceptable Use Policy ) details what we at Team XLink will consider tolerable.
tolerable Quotes

Let us have no ranting tragedies. Too many charactersöNot a tolerable woman's part in the play.

—Austen,Jane

There are only two kinds of government, the scarcely tolerable and the absolutely unbearable.

—Dafoe,JohnW

Browse dictionary entries near tolerable

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  8. tola
  9. Tokyo Topix Index
  10. Tokyo Stock Exchange Inc.
  1. tolerance
  2. tolerant
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  6. Tolima
  7. Tolkien
  8. toll
  9. toll bar
  10. toll bridge