Other forms: tolerances
Tolerance is accepting people and views unlike your own. Religious tolerance, a spirit of tolerance, tolerance of dissent.
It implies putting up with rather than approving, which is why some prefer acceptance for the stronger idea. Zero tolerance means enforcing a rule with no exceptions. In medicine, tolerance is the body needing more of a drug for the same effect; in allergy it is the opposite. In engineering, a tolerance is the permitted variation in a measurement, and close tolerances are what make precision expensive.
1nountoleranceAccepting people and views unlike your own.
“Tolerance was written into the constitution and not into the habits.”
2nounpermittedThe permitted variation in a measurement.
“The parts are machined to a tolerance of a few microns.”
tolerance is an allowance or acceptance.
Latin tolerantia means endurance, from tolerare, to bear. The word arrived in English meaning the ability to put up with hardship, and the social sense — putting up with other people's beliefs — is a product of the wars of religion.
Latin
tolerantia — endurance
Old French
tolerance
Middle English
toleraunce
English, today
tolerance
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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA