on sufferance
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Prepositional phrase
[edit]- (idiomatic) Unwillingly agreed to or barely tolerated.
- I wasn't whole-hearted about the decision but couldn't think of a better one, so went along with it on sufferance for the time being.
- 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
- In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass. […] Strangers might enter the room, but they were made to feel that they were there on sufferance: they were received with distance and suspicion.
Translations
[edit]unwillingly agreed to
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