patience
Meaning
The ability to stay calm and not become annoyed when dealing with problems or with difficult people, or when something takes a long time.
The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.
Structure
Usage
Learning a new language requires a great deal of patience and practice.
She listened to his long story with remarkable patience.
The teacher's patience with the struggling students was truly admirable.
Etymology
The word 'patience' originates from the Latin verb pati, meaning "to suffer, endure, or undergo." This core concept of enduring hardship without complaint passed into Old French as pacience, before being adopted into Middle English. The suffix -ence, derived from Latin -entia, transforms the action of enduring into the abstract noun denoting the quality or state of being able to endure. Thus, the literal "state of suffering/enduring" evolved into the modern virtue of calmly tolerating delay, difficulty, or annoyance without agitation.
Analysis
- pati: From Latin pati (to suffer, endure, undergo). It is the present active infinitive of the verb. - ence: From Latin -entia, a noun-forming suffix denoting a state, quality, or condition. It entered English via Old French -ence.