Synonyms of forbearance

forbearance

noun

fȯr-ˈber-ən(t)s 

1

as in patience

the capacity to endure what is difficult or disagreeable without complaining

we thank you for your forbearance while we attend to the technical difficulties interrupting the TV program

Synonyms & Similar Words

• patience
• tolerance
• sufferance
• long-suffering
• acquiescence
• willingness
• subordination
• discipline
• resignation
• passivity
• docility
• obedience
• compliance
• passiveness
• submission
• self-control
• tractability
• submissiveness
• amenability
• conformism

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• impatience
• defiance
• resistance
• disobedience
• insubordination
• willfulness
• recalcitrance
• intractability
• contrariness

2

as in mercy

kind, gentle, or compassionate treatment especially towards someone who is undeserving of it

the judge showed forbearance, and gave the teenaged first offender a suspended sentence

Synonyms & Similar Words

• mercy
• mercifulness
• empathy
• leniency
• compassion
• kindness
• clemency
• sympathy
• grace
• lenience
• lenity
• charity
• tenderness
• generosity
• goodness
• quarter
• pity
• understanding
• affection
• love
• gentleness
• magnanimity
• meekness
• goodwill
• humanitarianism
• benevolence
• kindliness
• altruism
• softness
• mildness
• philanthropy
• devotion
• favor
• nobility
• niceness
• worship
• commiseration
• humaneness
• care

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• ruthlessness
• retaliation
• vengeance
• retribution
• revenge
• punishment
• cruelty
• vindictiveness
• discipline
• reprisal
• violence
• virulence
• brutality
• barbarity
• savagery
• spite
• requital
• hatred
• sadism
• uncharitableness
• viciousness
• mercilessness
• chastisement
• truculence
• venom
• vitriol
• wantonness
• malice
• scolding
• hostility
• savageness
• hard-heartedness
• pitilessness
• castigation
• abhorrence
• meanness
• hate
• enmity
• loathing
• atrocity
• antagonism
• malignity
• resentment
• animosity
• detestation
• jealousy
• malevolence
• malignancy
• abomination
• bitterness
• antipathy
• execration
• maliciousness
• spleen
• grudge
• gall
• rancor
• jaundice
• nastiness
• bile
• pique
• harshness
• spitefulness
• hardness
• roughness
• coarseness
• hatefulness
• cattiness
• invidiousness

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of forbearance

This benefit is suspended during periods of deferment, grace period, or forbearance. — Dan Avery, CNBC, 8 July 2026

Many are in forbearance, said Stacey MacPhetres, senior director of education finance at Bright Horizons, a provider of educational advisory services. — Medora Lee, USA Today, 2 June 2026

The mission could never have succeeded without the generosity and forbearance of Natives, and the spirit in which the explorers took their gifts was sometimes ugly. — Caleb Crain, New Yorker, 25 May 2026

If the assassination made the President a Christlike figure, his forbearance in the face of a wife’s unreasonableness provides him with an extra measure of purity. — Literary Hub, 21 May 2026