patience (English)

Where does "patience" come from?

The English noun patience comes from Middle English 'pacience'[1], which was borrowed from Old French 'pacience'[2][3]. The Old French and Middle English forms trace back to Latin 'patientia', meaning 'suffering; endurance, patience'[1][2][3]. This Latin noun derives from 'patiens', the present active participle of the verb 'patior', meaning 'suffer, experience, wait'[1][5]. Ultimately, this lineage stretches back to the Proto-Indo-European root '*peh₁-', meaning 'to hurt'[1].

Open questions

The ultimate connection of the Latin verb to the Proto-Indo-European root '*peh₁-' meaning to hurt is a reconstructed linguistic relationship. [1]

Full etymology tree

patience (English), 'The quality of being patient.'
- inherited pacience (Middle English), 'patience, equanimity (especially under duress)'
  - borrowed pacience (Old French), 'patience'
    - inherited patientia (Latin), 'suffering'
      - derived patiens (Latin), 'suffering, enduring'
        inherited patior (Latin), 'to suffer, endure, tolerate'
        inherited *peh₁- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to hate, hurt'
      - suffix -ia (Latin), 'Used to form a first declension feminine abstract noun, usually from an adjective ending in -us, or (rarely in later Latin) one ending in -ius, or from a present participle stem, and occasionally from a root noun.'

Ancestors

*peh₁- (Proto-Indo-European)
pacience (Middle English)
pacience (Old French)
patientia (Latin)

Cognates and doublets

patience (French)

Descendants and derived words

lose patience (English)
patience dock (English)
patience is a virtue (English)
patience of an angel (English)
patience of a saint (English)
patience of Job (English)
patience of Mother Teresa (English)
test someone's patience (English)
try someone's patience (English)
unpatience (English)
pasensi (Sranan Tongo)

Sources

Updated September 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris