ENDURE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does endure mean? 

• ENDURE (verb)
  The verb ENDURE has 7 senses:

1. put up with something or somebody unpleasant

2. face and withstand with courage

3. continue to live and avoid dying

4. undergo or be subjected to

5. last and be usable

6. persist for a specified period of time

7. continue to exist

  Familiarity information: ENDURE used as a verb is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ENDURE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they endure    ... he / she / it endures   
Past simple: endured   
Past participle: endured   
-ing form: enduring   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Put up with something or somebody unpleasant

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

abide; bear; brook; digest; endure; put up; stand; stick out; stomach; suffer; support; tolerate

Context example:

She stuck out two years in a miserable marriage

Hypernyms (to "endure" is one way to...):

allow; countenance; let; permit (consent to, give permission)

Verb group:

suffer (experience (emotional) pain)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "endure"):

hold still for; stand for (tolerate or bear)

bear up (endure cheerfully)

take lying down (suffer without protest; suffer or endure passively)

take a joke (listen to a joke at one's own expense)

sit out (endure to the end)

pay (bear (a cost or penalty), in recompense for some action)

accept; live with; swallow (tolerate or accommodate oneself to)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

Sam cannot endure Sue

Derivation:

endurance (the power to withstand hardship or stress)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Face and withstand with courage

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

brave; brave out; endure; weather

Context example:

She braved the elements

Hypernyms (to "endure" is one way to...):

defy; hold; hold up; withstand (resist or confront with resistance)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Continue to live and avoid dying

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

endure; go; hold out; hold up; last; live; live on; survive

Context example:

One crash victim died, the other lived

"Endure" entails doing...:

be; live (have life, be alive)

Verb group:

exist; live; subsist; survive (support oneself)

be; live (have life, be alive)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "endure"):

hold up; hold water; stand up (resist or withstand wear, criticism, etc.)

perennate (survive from season to season, of plants)

live out (live out one's life; live to the end)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

endurance (a state of surviving; remaining alive)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Undergo or be subjected to

Classified under:

Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling

Synonyms:

endure; suffer

Context example:

Many saints suffered martyrdom

Hypernyms (to "endure" is one way to...):

experience; go through; see (undergo or live through a difficult experience)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "endure"):

die (suffer or face the pain of death)

tolerate (have a tolerance for a poison or strong drug or pathogen or environmental condition)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 5

Meaning:

Last and be usable

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

endure; hold out; wear

Context example:

This dress wore well for almost ten years

Hypernyms (to "endure" is one way to...):

endure; last (persist for a specified period of time)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s Adjective/Noun
Something ----s something

Sense 6

Meaning:

Persist for a specified period of time

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

endure; last

Context example:

The bad weather lasted for three days

Hypernyms (to "endure" is one way to...):

measure (have certain dimensions)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "endure"):

run; run for (extend or continue for a certain period of time)

endure; hold out; wear (last and be usable)

drag on; drag out (last unnecessarily long)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Sense 7

Meaning:

Continue to exist

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

die hard; endure; persist; prevail; run

Context example:

The legend of Elvis endures

Hypernyms (to "endure" is one way to...):

continue (exist over a prolonged period of time)

Verb group:

run (occur persistently)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "endure"):

carry over (transfer or persist from one stage or sphere of activity to another)

reverberate (have a long or continuing effect)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

 Context examples 

He alone endured and prospered, matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunning.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

I lay still and endured; that was all.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I had been unhappy in trying it; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom; I could not reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my child-wife.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

How can Mr. Carruthers endure such a creature for a moment?

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They were tired and weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience which comes of hardship long endured.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I had not imagined a human being could endure so much and still live and struggle on.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And these perilous contacts from all these strange hands he must endure.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

We were born to strive and endure—you as well as I: do so.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In this one little was said of the hardships endured, the dangers faced, or the homesickness conquered.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

"Some day I'll beat the face off of him," was the way he often consoled himself for enduring the man's existence.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)