endurance

endurance — noun

1. The physical or mental ability to deal with something hard or painful over a lon

1.nounB2
Definition

The physical or mental ability to deal with something hard or painful over a long period without quitting.

Example

The hundred-kilometre walk tested the endurance of everyone in the group.

collocation: test someone's endurance

Building up your endurance takes months of regular training and patience.

collocation: build up endurance

Common collocations
  • test one's endurance
  • build up endurance
  • physical endurance
  • mental endurance
  • remarkable endurance
  • great endurance
  • push one's endurance
Synonyms
  • stamina

    focuses on physical energy and strength over time, while endurance also covers mental toughness

  • persistence

    emphasises the act of continuing despite opposition or difficulty, rather than the capacity to do so

  • resilience

    refers to the ability to recover quickly from setbacks, whereas endurance emphasises sustained effort

  • fortitude

    is more formal and specifically describes courage in facing pain or adversity

Antonyms
  • weakness

    lack of physical or mental strength to continue

  • fatigue

    extreme tiredness that brings effort to an end

Grammar Patterns

endurance + to-infinitive

Usage Note

Unlike 'stamina', which refers mainly to physical energy, 'endurance' can describe both mental and physical capacity to cope with hardship.

Common Mistakes

I need more endurance power.
I need more endurance.
'endurance' already includes the idea of power or ability; adding 'power' is redundant.
She has many endurances.
She has great endurance.
'endurance' is uncountable and does not take a plural form.

endurance — adjective

Word family

  • endure
    verbB2
  • enduring
    adjectiveB2
  • endurable
    adjectiveC1
  • endurably
    adverbC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Endurance, stamina, persistence, and resilience all describe the ability to handle difficulty, but they highlight different aspects. Endurance is the broadest term: the capacity to keep going through pain, hardship, or boredom over time — it can be mental or physical. Stamina is more narrowly physical, referring to energy and the body's ability to sustain effort, as in 'building up cardiovascular stamina.' Persistence is behavioural: it describes the act of continuing determinedly despite obstacles, often with a goal in mind ('her persistence in applying for the grant'). Resilience describes bouncing back: the speed and flexibility with which someone recovers from setbacks or stress ('the resilience of the community after the flood'). In practice, a marathon runner needs endurance to finish the race, stamina to maintain pace, persistence to train daily, and resilience to recover from an injury.

staminapersistence ↗resilience

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • feat of endurance
  • limit of one's endurance
  • test of endurance
  • beyond endurance

Prepositions

Etymology

LatinFrenchEnglish

Endurance comes from the Old French 'endurance', formed from 'endurer' (to endure) plus the suffix '-ance', which turns verbs into nouns indicating a state or quality. The French verb traces back to Latin 'indūrāre', a combination of 'in-' (in, into) and 'dūrus' (hard). The original Latin sense was 'to harden' or 'to make hard', which evolved metaphorically into 'to hold out against hardship'. The word entered English in the 15th century, first carrying the meaning of 'permanence' or 'duration', and later shifting to its modern sense of 'ability to withstand suffering or effort'.