Other forms: suffered, suffering, suffers
To suffer is to feel pain or hardship over a period of time. Suffer from asthma, suffer in silence, made them suffer.
Suffer from is the standard construction for an ongoing condition. Suffer also means to undergo something bad — the team suffered a defeat — and, in an older sense preserved in the Bible and in law, to allow: suffer little children, suffer fools gladly. Note sufferance; and that not suffer fools gladly is the standard way of praising somebody's rudeness.
1verbsufferTo feel pain or hardship over a period of time.
“He suffered terrible headaches for years before a doctor found the cause.”
2verballowTo allow, in older use.
“The old king would not suffer anyone to speak against him.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
suffer is an enduring.
Latin sufferre is sub plus ferre, to carry — to bear up under. Offer, transfer and infer come from the same carrying, and suffer displaced the Old English throwian.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰer-
Middle English
suffren
English, today
suffer
Built from
From Middle English suffren. From Middle English suffren, from Anglo-Norman sofrir, from Latin sufferō (“to offer, hold up, bear, suffer”), from sub- (“up, under”) + ferō (“to carry”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰer- (“to bear, carry”). Displaced native þrōwian.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA