suffering

• IPA^(key): /ˈsʌfəɹɪŋ/, /ˈsʌfɹɪŋ/

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• Hyphenation: suf‧fer‧ing

suffering

1. Experiencing pain; characterized by suffering.
   • 1839 August, Beacon, “The deathbed of Voltaire”, in Charles Benjamin Tayler, editor, The Christian Beacon, number 8, page 118:

     Her last night was very suffering, the anodyne she took gave her no relief, and for the first time she lay till near noon.

   • 1862, Ruth Bryan, Handfuls of purpose, page 427:

     My heart is full, but my body too suffering to go on.

   • 1900 May 8, Abram I. Elkus, Supreme Court : Helen D. Ward, Plaintiff, against Saint VIncent's Hospital, of the City of New York, Defendant., page 28:

     I said that Miss Kinney opened the wound; I had not seen the burn then, myself; I was too ill and too suffering to rise up to see the whole surface of it; this was on Thursday morning, the morning after the operation, that I complained of such pain I must have something to relieve it, so she brought these strips of bandages and vaseline, and then she examined the wound, and without saying anything she took this brass pin and pricked it in several places;

   • 2005, Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill (HL), page 73:

     Just to hear them was very suffering ... It must have been so unbearable to have to yell like that.

   • 2014, Silvia Michela Carrassi, Travels Through Spirit, page 114:

     I was listening her because she was telling me she was very suffering and that she was praying for her pains, for sinners, for poor, for ill people and for afflicted.

• (experiencing pain): in pain

suffering (countable and uncountable, plural sufferings)

1. The condition of someone who suffers; a state of pain or distress.
   • 2011 December 14, Steven Morris, “Devon woman jailed for 168 days for killing kitten in microwave”, in Guardian‎:

     Robins, of Torquay, had denied a single charge of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. She claimed the microwave was accidentally turned on by one of the cats after the kitten got inside. But Knutton said the kitten was too small to even get onto the work surface.

• long-suffering
• pain and suffering
• suffering catfish
• suffering cats
• suffering centipedes
• suffering Moses
• post-suffering
• suffering succotash
• suffering Sappho

suffering

1. present participle and gerund of suffer

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