What is intolerant
Intolerant Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
in·tol·er·ant (ˌ)in-ˈtä-lə-rənt
-ˈtä--rənt
1
: unable or unwilling to endure
2
a
: unwilling to grant equal freedom of expression especially in religious matters
b
: unwilling to grant or share social, political, or professional rights : bigoted
3
: exhibiting physiological intolerance
lactose intolerant
intolerantly adverb
intolerantness noun
Synonyms
- impatient
See all Synonyms & Antonyms in Thesaurus
Example Sentences
intolerant of fools, she is not an easy person to work for intolerant people who callously deny others the very rights that they take for granted
Recent Examples on the Web Irrespective of what is being sold or solved, the average consumer today is harder to please and intolerant to uninspired experiences. —Prasanna Singaraju, Forbes, 11 Oct. 2022 The opposition has been disrespectful, hateful, intolerant, uninformed and often downright disgusting. —Jon Brown, Fox News, 12 Sep. 2022 Georgetown, like most law schools, is dominated by progressives, often of the intolerant and vindictive variety. —The Editorial Board, WSJ, 6 June 2022 Also, one site noted that ‘Sun Valley Red ‘is intolerant of wind. —oregonlive, 20 Nov. 2022 These grasses are intolerant of cold temperatures, and grow year-round only in USDA Zone 10 and warmer. —Andrea Beck, Better Homes & Gardens, 9 Nov. 2022 For the most part, this rings true: the more the West has displayed tolerance toward the Islamic Republic, the more the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been intolerant of the West and the Iranian public.
—Ana Diamond, CNN, 21 Oct. 2022 Then there are those people who are lactose intolerant. —Chris Smith, BGR, 10 Oct. 2022 The surcharge has prompted protests from the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and from celebrities, who call it a fee that penalizes people who avoid animal products or are lactose intolerant. —Kayla Steinberg, NBC News, 12 Aug. 2022 See More
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'intolerant.
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Word History
First Known Use
circa 1735, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Time Traveler
The first known use of intolerant was circa 1735
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Dictionary Entries Near
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intolerant
intolerating
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“Intolerant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intolerant. Accessed 15 Dec. 2022.
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Kids Definition
intolerant
adjective
in·tol·er·ant (ˈ)in-ˈtäl-(ə-)rənt
1
: unable or unwilling to endure
2
: unwilling to grant equality, freedom, or other social rights
intolerantly adverb
Medical Definition
intolerant
adjective
in·tol·er·ant
(ˈ)in-ˈtäl(-ə)-rənt
: exhibiting physiological intolerance: unable to properly metabolize or absorb a substance
People who are lactose intolerant cannot digest lactose because their small intestines do not produce enough lactase, the enzyme that breaks lactose down …—Jeffrey Steingarten, Vogue
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intolerantNglish: Translation of intolerant for Spanish Speakers
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Merriam-Webster unabridged
Intolerant Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.
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[ in-tol-er-uhnt ]
/ ɪnˈtɒl ər ənt /
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See synonyms for intolerant on Thesaurus.com
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adjective
not tolerating or respecting beliefs, opinions, usages, manners, etc., different from one's own, as in political or religious matters; bigoted.
unable or unwilling to tolerate or endure (usually followed by of): intolerant of very hot weather.
unable to fully digest or absorb a specified food or drug (used postpositively or in combination):lactose intolerant; aspirin-intolerant.
noun
an intolerant person; bigot.
OTHER WORDS FOR intolerant
1 illiberal, narrow, proscriptive, prejudiced, biased, dictatorial, totalitarian.
See synonyms for intolerant on Thesaurus.com
OPPOSITES FOR intolerant
1 liberal.
See antonyms for intolerant on Thesaurus.com
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Origin of intolerant
1725–35; <Latin intolerant- (stem of intolerāns) impatient. See in-3, tolerant
synonym study for intolerant
1. Intolerant, fanatical, bigoted refer to strongly illiberal attitudes. Intolerant refers to an active refusal to allow others to have or put into practice beliefs different from one's own: intolerant in politics; intolerant of other customs.
Bigoted is to be so emotionally or subjectively attached to one's own belief as to be hostile to all others: a bigoted person. Fanatical applies to unreasonable or extreme action in maintaining one's beliefs and practices without necessary reference to others: a fanatical religious sect.
OTHER WORDS FROM intolerant
in·tol·er·ant·ly, adverbqua·si-in·tol·er·ant, adjectivequa·si-in·tol·er·ant·ly, adverbWORDS THAT MAY BE CONFUSED WITH intolerant
intolerable, intolerantWords nearby intolerant
into effect, in token of, intolerable, Intolerable Acts, intolerance, intolerant, into line, intomb, intonaco, intonate, intonation
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022
Words related to intolerant
biased, bigoted, dictatorial, disdainful, dogmatic, fanatical, fractious, hateful, indignant, irritable, racist, xenophobic, antipathetic, averse, chauvinistic, communist, conservative, contemptuous, illiberal, individualistic
How to use intolerant in a sentence
Additionally, new features such as the functionality introduced by Tinder to prevent LGBTQ identification being shown in the profile of users who may be travelling through intolerant nations are incredibly important.
Trusting The Tech – Why technology is key for the LGBTQ community|Nicci Rae|July 28, 2021|Washington Blade
For the lactose intolerant or butter haters, simply put a nickel on the scale.
Best kitchen scales: This handy kitchen essential is a must-have for baking and beyond|Irena Collaku|July 24, 2021|Popular-Science
He says and does many of the right things and is intolerant of bad behavior, which is great.
My boss keeps telling me to ‘calm down’ when I report problems. How do I explain that’s sexist?|Karla Miller|June 3, 2021|Washington Post
He reached out to the emerging vegan food movement and to an untapped market of millions of lactose-intolerant Americans.
David Mintz, inventor of Tofutti nondairy ice cream, dies at 89|Matt Schudel|March 5, 2021|Washington Post
Loeffler could also cast calls for her removal as Dream owner as a symptom of “cancel culture” intolerant of opposing views.
'We Did That': Inside the WNBA’s Strategy to Support Raphael Warnock—and Help Democrats Win the Senate|Sean Gregory|January 7, 2021|Time
And the fact that satire unnerves the intolerant is evidence of its positive power.
Why We Stand With Charlie Hebdo—And You Should Too|John Avlon|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST
His policies helped engender the rise of an intolerant and severe nationalism that conflates piety with patriotism.
Why So Many Pakistanis Hate Their Nobel Peace Prize Winner|Chris Allbritton|October 10, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Companies are also intolerant of violence in the workplace because it undermines workforce stability and hampers productivity.
How Your Company Can End Violence Against Girls|Gary Cohen|October 9, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But he grew intolerant of clients tampering with his illustrations.
Gosta Peterson's Bohemian Rhapsody: Unpacking a Photographer's '60s Secrets|Lizzie Crocker|September 10, 2014|DAILY BEAST
She's happy to accommodate vegetarians, vegans, and those intolerant of gluten.
The Ultimate Southern Cheeseburger Created in South Carolina|Jane & Michael Stern|August 10, 2014|DAILY BEAST
His abilities the most intolerant Tories were forced grudgingly to acknowledge.
The History of England from the Accession of James II.|Thomas Babington Macaulay
The tumult and license which usually characterise a general election were more than ordinarily rampant and intolerant.
The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III.|E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
The notion of a tyrant God can create but abject, angry, quarrelsome, intolerant slaves.
Superstition In All Ages (1732)|Jean Meslier
The Portuguese are superstitious, and are devout up to a certain point, and the clerics are exceedingly intolerant.
Spanish Life in Town and Country|L. Higgin and Eugne E. Street
To master with more certainty her understanding, they would render her austere, intolerant, and vindictive.
Letters To Eugenia|Paul Henri Thiry Holbach
British Dictionary definitions for intolerant
intolerant
/ (ɪnˈtɒlərənt) /
adjective
lacking respect for practices and beliefs other than one's own
(postpositive foll by of) not able or willing to tolerate or endureintolerant of noise
Derived forms of intolerant
intolerance, nounintolerantly, adverbCollins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co.
Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
8 traits of an intolerant person | 01/18/2022, InoSMI
InoSMI materials contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors InoSMI
I find it hard to believe that there are still so many intolerant people around. Apparently, these people have some common features. In my years as a psychotherapist, I have often dealt with clients who had personality problems. In those who were irritable, touchy and hostile, I often noted the following features.
Mark Goulston
I find it hard to believe that there are still so many intolerant people around - such as those who vehemently oppose gay marriage, although they seem to have nothing to do with other people's intimate relationships harm. Apparently, these people have some common features. In my years as a psychotherapist, I have often dealt with clients who had personality problems.
In those who were irritable, touchy and hostile, I often noted the following features.
1. Fanaticism . They don't just believe in something deeply - their faith is extremely narrow and leaves no room for other interpretations. They consider their views to be the only possible ones. In their opinion, everyone who disagrees with them even slightly is wrong and hostile. There is a difference between deep, convinced faith and fanaticism, which makes you attack anyone who disagrees with you or simply sees things differently.
2. Psychological rigidity. Any other way of looking at things causes them deep anxiety, so they will try their best to get others to agree with them. Deep down, they are primarily concerned with self-preservation, and the “other” for them is a threat to their identity. Accordingly, any of their actions seem to them self-defense from the "aggression" of carriers of other points of view.
3. Omniscience.
They know a great deal about one very narrow aspect of life—usually one in which they excel—and believe that this knowledge is relevant to any situation. When confronted with resistance, they retreat, remember how their approach works in their favored narrow area, and lash out again with even more aggressiveness.
4. Inability to listen. Ugh, that's obvious! The people around them rarely feel that they are being listened to, heard, understood, and even more so that their opinion is valued - especially if they at least somehow disagree with the point of view of such a person.
5. Relationship tension. This is not surprising: their habit of controlling everything means that they can maintain relationships only with people who obey, obey and submit. This also means that they often have explosive relationships with teenage children.
6. Belief in control. They have a black and white vision, without any halftones.
They do not believe that we cannot control most areas of our lives. Let's say we have some control over what we say, write, and do, but we can't control how it will be heard, read, or seen. Such people often grow up either in families where parents try to control everything, or in families where complete chaos reigns. Controlling parents instill in them the idea that this is the only possible and correct way of life - and they carry these principles into their own lives. And if they grow up in a chaotic family, then they decide that there will be more order in their adult life - but they do not know the measures in this and go too far.
7. Inability to leave anything to chance. They have a deep conviction that if anything is left to chance, something terrible will happen. Albert Einstein said: “The most important thing in life is to decide whether you live in a safe or dangerous world.” For some reason, such people decide that they live in a dangerous world, and this justifies their preemptive aggression and hostility towards others - after all, they are ready to attack them at any moment (sounds like the principles of foreign policy, right?).
8. Profound jealousy. This is perhaps the most interesting. An envious person wants what another has, a jealous person is angry at another for having something. In my opinion, they are envious because, in general, they are unhappy. Such people suffer from the fact that they seem to follow all the rules, but do not receive peace of mind as a reward. Therefore, when they see people who have broken many rules and norms in order to find love and be happy, they are not just jealous, but jealous.
When it comes to other people's intimate relationships, my philosophy, which I hope I can follow, is the phrase "live yourself and let others love."
Mark Goolston, Los Angeles-based psychiatrist, author of Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone, co-founder of the Heartfelt Leadership project .
Intolerance
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Tags: Intolerance, Psychology
There are two things I can't stand:
racial prejudice and stinky narrow-eyes!
(From The Benny Hill Show)
To say this is a trait that only some of us have is a gross understatement.
Intolerance is a universal human quality. Each of us is intolerant to some extent, but do we realize how dangerous this is?
It is curious that most people, even the mildest, most moral, still have so-called "weak spots" on which they break down, sometimes breaking down to aggression. Everyone has their own. One is not indifferent to disputes, the other changes his face if he sees injustice, the third will forgive everything in the world, but as for books... People are imperfect, and this is normal . Today we have another opportunity to calmly and honestly look at ourselves. But do not spy on yourself, because if the “Müller of my body” (the correct part of the personality) tries to find a flaw and catch the “Stirlitz” (the wrong part), then the latter will only improve in conspiracy. But it is not yet known that is correct and what is not . It's like looking. After all, if “alien”, then a spy, and if “ours”, then a scout. Therefore, we will try without fear and without aggression towards ourselves, but calmly, like a normal living person, see this trait in ourselves and accept it.
Intolerance is, on the one hand, the inability to accept beliefs, feelings, behavior that differ from our own; on the other hand, it is the unwillingness to grant equal freedom of expression to another person.
Intolerance can poison life very seriously (or rather, we ourselves poison our lives with its help), although it may seem to us that it is quite the opposite. Here are examples of the most common manifestations of intolerance:
- Intolerance of dissent.
This includes, first of all, national intolerance (“If there is no water in the tap, they drank the water ...”)
Militant misunderstanding of foreign culture (Chinese opera, for example, or Turkish music) can be attributed to the same type of intolerance. - Intolerance towards another social stratum, community.
(“Only snobs live in the upper part of the city!”, “rotten intellectual”, “hegemon”, “mink hats”). - Intolerance towards another generation
("senile insanity", "we were not like that").
Especially often people in their fifties are annoyed by teenage children who behave too joyfully in a public place - that's who you can break away from! - Interest intolerance.
More subtle at first glance, but no less stupid in essence: “This football!”, “These series!”, “You will soon go crazy with your books! Do you read a lot and what? Has he become a good person?" Here the phrase “It would be better if you ...” is often heard. The whole question is who is better off. - Intolerance simply towards someone else's opinion on any occasion.
Intolerance to other people’s taste: “What have you done to yourself?”, “You are a good woman, but how you dress up!..”, “I didn’t expect you to like such primitive things!”, “He has an earring in his ear !" etc. - Intolerance towards oneself.
("I'm guilty! I'm an idiot!").
This type of intolerance is often the source for the manifestation of the previous ones.
A variant of intolerance is categoricalness — harsh value judgments, labels. It is with categoricalness that irony and sarcasm coexist. Its markers are the words "never", "always", "everyone", "no one", "impossible", "terrible", "useless", etc.
The so-called social stereotypes also work on intolerance: "Scientists are distracted and unadapted, doctors are cynical and uncreative, teachers are limited and authoritarian."
Very often the external fulfillment of the rules prescribed by public morality does not ensure their internal acceptance. You can show tolerance on the outside, but boil with indignation on the inside. And then be tormented by unexpressed emotions and eventually get an emotional breakdown. Therefore, intolerance must be overcome both externally and internally. That is, really practice in following the above rules (habit is second nature), and at the same time imbued with the thought of the inconsistency of your assessments, overcome pride, not take on the function of the Lord God.
Try to consider phenomena phenomenologically - "Yes, it happens!"
Any defect of character, including intolerance, is based on fear — fear of deprivation of something important, fear of loneliness, fear of misunderstanding... It comes from childhood, from the state of a child, when everyone around is so big and strong, and my life depends on them, they may or may not give what I need. And this state of trouble, generated by the very situation of childhood, persists throughout life (to a greater or lesser extent). How to explain intolerance?
This is the same fear that my world, which I invented for myself, can be destroyed. I built my model of the world, "built" people, dividing them into good and bad, smart and stupid, refined and primitive, beautiful and ugly... And when I meet a person, I determine his place in my coordinate system. This is normal if a person is allowed to move in it somehow, but most often, each is assigned a place that he should not leave. And if a person does not correspond to some of my ideas, an emotion of indignation arises: “Yes, how dare he be less smart (kind, predictable, moral .
..) than I predetermined for him! He's ruining everything!" One feels an extremely immature reaction, which speaks more of internal trouble than of strength of character. A stereotype of perception is visible - "This is a chair, they are sitting on it!".
Categorical judgments and a tendency to argue also have a basis. Have you noticed that children, being in the company of peers (in kindergarten or at school), often complain to the teacher or educator about each other, talk to each other. And sometimes they defiantly enter into an argument with a friend, looking surreptitiously at an adult. All this makes sense to test your knowledge about what is possible and what is not possible in this world. Indeed, quite often children have the following reaction: “And he turned on the water in the toilet and washed his hair!” - "So what? Don't complain about your comrade!" - "And I want too!" That is, there is a lack of independence of thinking, an eye on authorities.
And the tendency to disputes and categorical judgments just accompanies personal insecurity and lack of independence of thought. It turns out that you want the truth, but does he want something else? Wise teachers sometimes react very subtly to the categorical statements of children, seeing fear and uncertainty behind them. Example: A boy first came to kindergarten, saw drawings of children in the locker room and said: “Fu! What stupid drawings! How did the teacher react? She did not defend the honor of the group, did not agree with the boy or convince him. She replied: “In our kindergarten you can draw and such!” And that's it. The child went to the group without fear.
There is another psychological aspect. Most often, we are offended in other people by precisely those features that we, for some reason, are afraid to discover in ourselves. This is a projection option. We project onto another (or others, up to the whole nation) our greed, envy, laziness, aggressiveness (gypsies are lazy and dirty, "chocks" are stupid, etc.
