tolerance
/ˈtɑ.lə.ɹəns/noun, verb
tolerance is spelled T-O-L-E-R-A-N-C-E. The wrong spelling people search most is tolerence: about 90 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 21 of all searches for the word. Tolerance is a noun meaning “The ability or practice of tolerating; an acceptance of or patience with the beliefs, opinions or practices…”. The plural of tolerance is tolerances.
How many letters and syllables are in tolerance?
| Letters | 9: T-O-L-E-R-A-N-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 11 times per million words; the 6,456th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, tolerence, about 90 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell tolerance?
Tolerance is spelled T-O-L-E-R-A-N-C-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 21 of the searches for tolerance in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is tolerance?
Tolerance appears 11 times per million words in written English, the 6,456th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce tolerance?
- UK /ˈtɒl.ə.ɹəns/
- US /ˈtɑ.lə.ɹəns/
- Canada /ˈtɒl.ə.ɹəns/
Tolerance has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-tolerance.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with tolerance?
One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as tolerance from its last stressed vowel (/ɑləɹəns/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: coeternal.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of tolerance
- tolerances plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- tolerancing participle, present
- toleranced participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does tolerance mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
obsoleteThe ability to endure pain or hardship; endurance.
- 2
The ability or practice of tolerating; an acceptance of or patience with the beliefs, opinions or practices of others; a lack of bigotry.
Near-synonym: forbearance
- 3
The ability of the body (or other organism) to resist the action of a poison, to cope with a dangerous drug or to survive infection by an organism.
- 4
Resistance to drunkenness.
Since he hadn't had any alcohol in years, his tolerance was very low, and it only took two drinks for him to get sloshed.
- 5
The variation or deviation from a standard, especially the maximum permitted variation in an engineering measurement.
Our customers can generally accept ten times the tolerance which we can achieve in our machining operations.
- 6
The ability of the body to accept a tissue graft without rejection.
verb
- 1
To design or engineer a material to a specified tolerance.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Tolerance in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | Toleranz |
| Spanish | tolerancia |
| French | tolérance |
| Portuguese | tolerância |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does tolerance come from?
Inherited from Middle English toleraunce, borrowed from Old French tolerance, from Latin tolerantia (“endurance”), from tolerāns, present participle of, and participial adjective from Latin tolerō (“to endure”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).