Adjective

(en adjective)

Not sufferable; very difficult or impossible to endure.

{{quote-Fanny Hill, part=3 , kept up by the pain I had endur'd in the course of the engagement, from the insufferable size of his weapon, tho' it was not as yet in above half its length.}}

* , Lady Susan , ch. 22:

This is insufferable ! My dearest friend, I was never so enraged before,and must relieve myself by writing to you. . . . Guess my astonishment, and vexation.

* 1894 , , The Coxon Fund , ch. 4:

Saltram was incapable of keeping the engagements which, after their separation, he had entered into with regard to his wife, a deeply wronged, justly resentful, quite irreproachable and insufferable person.

* 1913 , , The Custom of the Country , ch. 13:

Marvell . . . thought Peter a bore in society and an insufferable nuisance on closer terms.

* 2011 June 7, " Chaos in Syria," Time :

The oppressive heat has become insufferable in Syria — and as the temperature climbs, emotions get harder to contain.

Adjective

(en-adj)

Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental.

Afflicted or suffering with pain (of a body part or, formerly, of a person).

Requiring effort or labor; difficult, laborious.

* 1624 , John Smith, Generall Historie , in Kupperman 1988, p. 142:

The men bestow their times in fishing, hunting, warres, and such manlike exercises, scorning to be seene in any woman-like exercise, which is the cause that the women be very painefull , and the men often idle.

* 1843 , , Book 2, Ch. 2

For twenty generations, here was the earthly arena where painful living men worked out their life-wrestle