suffer fools gladly

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

To tolerate foolish or annoying people patiently

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

chịu đựng những người ngốc nghếch một cách kiên nhẫn

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to endure foolish people happily
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

She's very kind and suffers fools gladly

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “suffer fools gladly” mean?

To tolerate foolish or annoying people patiently Literally: to endure foolish people happily

Is “suffer fools gladly” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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