Endurance

How to spell endurance

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce endurance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does endurance mean?

1. nounThe ability to withstand prolonged hardship, effort, or pain without giving up.

Endurance in a sentence

• The marathon tested the runners' endurance over four hours.

• Caring for a sick relative demands real emotional endurance.

Where does endurance come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb durare, meaning 'to harden, to hold out, or to last', which itself grew from the adjective durus, meaning 'hard'. The same hard core survives in everyday relatives such as 'durable', 'duration', and 'during', all of which carry the idea of something continuing or holding firm. English took the word in the late 1400s through Old French endurer, where the prefix en- added the sense of putting oneself into a lasting, hardened state. Over time the meaning settled on the capacity to bear hardship or to keep going under strain, whether physical or mental. The spelling trap sits at the end: it takes -ance rather than -ence, a choice that simply has to be remembered since the Latin durare gives no audible clue.

How the word is built

• en- (make, put into)
• dur (lasting, hard)
• -ance (noun suffix)