Patience or patient?
patience is a noun meaning “The quality of being patient”; patient is an adjective meaning “Willing to wait if necessary; not losing one's temper while waiting”. Use patience as a noun and patient as an adjective (patient is also a noun: “A person or animal that receives health care from a doctor…”). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) patient is about 3.7 times as common as patience.
What is the difference between patience and patient?
| patience | patient | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | adjective, noun |
| Meaning | The quality of being patient UKAny of various card games that can be played by one person | Willing to wait if necessary; not losing one's temper while waiting Constant in pursuit or exertion; persevering; calmly diligent A person or animal that receives health care from a doctor, nurse, dentist, allied health practitioner, or other person educated in health care |
| Example | Musical perfection requires practice and a lot of patience | Be patient: your friends will arrive in a few hours |
| Forms | patiences | none |
| Pronunciation | /ˈpeɪ̯.ʃəns/ /ˈpæɪ̯.ʃəns/ /ˈpe.ʃəns/ | /ˈpeɪ̯ʃənt/ [ˈpʰeɪ̯ʃənt] ~ [ˈpʰeɪ̯ʃn̩t] /ˈpɛjʃənt/ |
| In writing | 16 times per million words | 59 times per million words |
Sources: patience and patient in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of patience and patient
patience
- 1
The quality of being patient
Musical perfection requires practice and a lot of patience
- 2
UKAny of various card games that can be played by one person
patient
- 1
Willing to wait if necessary; not losing one's temper while waiting
Be patient: your friends will arrive in a few hours
- 2
A person or animal that receives health care from a doctor, nurse, dentist, allied health practitioner, or other person educated in health care
Hello, is your practice currently accepting new patients? I'd like to become a patient there if so
- 3
Constant in pursuit or exertion; persevering; calmly diligent
patient endeavour
- 4
The noun or noun phrase that is semantically on the receiving end of a verb's action
The subject of a passive verb is usually a patient
- 5
One who, or that which, is passively affected; a passive recipient
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, patience or patient?
patience appears 16 times per million words; patient 59 times per million words.
patience 16 times per million wordspatient 59 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search patience vs patient?
“patience vs patient” is searched about 4,400 times a month on Google and 200 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“patient vs patience”, “patience or patient”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.