Sufferance is being allowed only because nobody has bothered to object. You are here, and nobody has said you may be.
The word survives almost entirely in one phrase: on sufferance. Somebody staying on sufferance is tolerated rather than welcome, and the position is not a comfortable one. It comes from suffer in its old sense of allow, which also gives the biblical line about suffering little children. Modern law keeps a tenant at sufferance, meaning one who stays after the lease has run out.
1nounsufferanceTolerance given only because nobody objects.
“He stayed in the flat on sufferance for another month.”
Latin
sufferentia
Anglo-Norman
suffraunce
Middle English
sufferaunce
English, today
sufferance
From Middle English sufferaunce, from Anglo-Norman suffraunce, from Latin sufferentia. by surface analysis, suffer + -ance.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA