Also 5–6 suffrer, 6 Sc. sufferar. [f. SUFFER v. + -ER1.]
1. One who suffers pain, tribulation, injury, wrong, loss, etc.; one who suffers from disease or ill health.
c. 1450. trans. De Imitatione, III. li. 123. I knowe hov all þinge is doon, I knowe þe wronge doer & suffrer.
1579. Rice, Invect. agst. Vices, D ij b. The sufferers of persecution for his names sake.
1671. Milton, Samson, 1525. The sufferers then will scarce molest us here.
1684. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), III. 94. Basill Wood, sometimes a captaine in the king’s army and a great sufferer for the king’s cause.
1781. Cowper, Retirem., 343. Sad suff’rer under nameless ill.
1825. Scott, Betrothed, iv. A severe discharge of missiles with the Welsh, by which both parties were considerable sufferers.
1888. Miss Braddon, Fatal Three, I. v. He had made up his mind that Dr. Hutchinson must come to see these humble sufferers, and to investigate the cause of evil.
b. One who suffers death; one who is killed (now only in reference to martyrdom).
1721. Wodrow, Hist. Suff. Ch. Scot., III. iv. § 5. II. 147. I know well, by subdolous Proposals, and captious Questions, great Endeavours were used to shake the Sufferers.
1815. Scott, Guy M., x. On one side of this patch of open ground, was found the sufferer’s naked hanger. Ibid. (1828), F. M. Perth, xxiv. When thrown off from the ladder, the sufferer will find himself suspended, not by his neck,… but by the steel circle.
1836. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), IV. 103. The ‘poor sufferers,’ as we say at York in assize time.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vii. II. 176. A few years later a more illustrious sufferer, Lord Russell, had been accompanied by Burnet from the Tower to the scaffold in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
c. A patient. Now rare.
1809. Med. Jrnl., XXI. 180. To such as have been in the habit of watching the various changes in this disease at the bedside of the unfortunate sufferer.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xiv. A generous rivalry … as to which should be most attentive to the dear sufferer in the state bedroom.
† 2. That which undergoes some operation; a passive thing. Obs. rare–1.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, x. (1592), 146. Whereof then … so great ods betwixt them, sith we holde opinion that God is Good, and the verie worker or Doer, and contrariwise that Matter is Euill, and but onely a Sufferer?
† 3. One who permits something to be done. Obs.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Gold. Bk. M. Aurel., xi. (1537), 19 b. No bablers, but small spekers: no quarellers, but suffrers.
1560–1. First Bk. Discipl. Ch. Scot., in Knox’s Wks. (1848), II. 188. Thair sall Goddis wraith reigne, not onlie upone the blind and obstinat idolater, but also upone the negligent sufferaris.
1627. Sanderson, Serm. (1674), I. 273. As for the very formality it self of the sin, God is (to make the most of it) but a sufferer.
