What is the answer to the crossword clue "tolerate"?

There is more than one. 15 words in our dictionary fit this clue, and which one a puzzle wants depends on the length of the slot and the crossing letters. Four squares is BEAR, and five is ABIDE, BROOK or STAND. BROOK is the one to remember: it appears almost exclusively in the negative, as in brook no argument, and setters like it for exactly that reason.

How many letters is the answer to "tolerate"?

Anything from 3 to 8. The length with the most candidates is 6. Count the squares in your grid and read only that row of the table.

How reliable are these answers?

12 of the 15 appear in two independently compiled reference works, WordNet and Moby Thesaurus, rather than one. All of them are in the 173,000-word dictionary this site searches. None of them comes from any published puzzle.

Crossword clue

Tolerate crossword clue

15 words in our dictionary can answer the crossword clue "tolerate", from 3 letters up to 8, grouped below by the length of your slot.

Written by Blake Boege

Answers by length

Read the row that matches your slot. PAY is the shortest answer here and STICKOUT the longest.

Letters	Answers
3	pay
4	bearconfirmed by two sources
5	abideconfirmed by two sources allowconfirmed by two sources brookconfirmed by two sources standconfirmed by two sources
6	digest endureconfirmed by two sources permitconfirmed by two sources sufferconfirmed by two sources acceptconfirmed by two sources
7	stomachconfirmed by two sources supportconfirmed by two sources swallowconfirmed by two sources
8	stickout

What this list looks like

Length 6 carries 5 answers, the largest group on this page.

Setters reach for 3-letter answers constantly, and here that means PAY.

3 of the 15 are not synonyms at all but specific kinds of what the clue describes.

Which one does the setter mean?

Four squares is BEAR, and five is ABIDE, BROOK or STAND. BROOK is the one to remember: it appears almost exclusively in the negative, as in brook no argument, and setters like it for exactly that reason.

How these differ

The list splits between enduring and permitting. BEAR, ABIDE, ENDURE, SUFFER, STOMACH and SWALLOW all mean to put up with something unpleasant, with STOMACH and SWALLOW being the most physical about the distaste. ALLOW, PERMIT and ACCEPT mean to let something happen, which is a different act: a parent tolerates noise in the first sense and tolerates a late curfew in the second. BROOK belongs to the first group and is almost always negated. STAND is the everyday word and works in both senses.

Still stuck? Filter by the letters you have

Got a crossing letter? The word finder searches the same dictionary as this page, with a box for the first letter, the last, and anything in between.

Where these answers come from

Computed, not copied. Every word above is recorded by WordNet as meaning “tolerate” or as naming a kind of it, and each one is in the 173,000-wordlist this site searches. Moby Thesaurus lists 12 of them too. We hold no newspaper's answer key and reproduce no published crossword.

Common questions

What is the answer to the crossword clue "tolerate"?: There is more than one. 15 words in our dictionary fit this clue, and which one a puzzle wants depends on the length of the slot and the crossing letters. Four squares is BEAR, and five is ABIDE, BROOK or STAND. BROOK is the one to remember: it appears almost exclusively in the negative, as in brook no argument, and setters like it for exactly that reason.
How many letters is the answer to "tolerate"?: Anything from 3 to 8. The length with the most candidates is 6. Count the squares in your grid and read only that row of the table.
How reliable are these answers?: 12 of the 15 appear in two independently compiled reference works, WordNet and Moby Thesaurus, rather than one. All of them are in the 173,000-word dictionary this site searches. None of them comes from any published puzzle.