Suffer, let, allow, permit

In our local church there hangs, on a wall near the font, a very home-made-looking board framing a text in capital letters, SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME.

I remember that when I was a small boy the word 'suffer' in that particular context was puzzling. To suffer meant (to me, at that time) to feel pain. I supposed that Jesus's words showed that he was particularly anxious to help little children who suffered: what, I wondered, might be the nature of their suffering ?

Eventually I became aware that our verb 'to suffer' meant also to 'allow', to 'let', to 'permit'.

'Suffer' was not an Old English word, but one based on the Latin verb suffero, made up of a prefix sub-, meaning 'under', and a verb fero meaning to 'bear, carry' - much the same idea as our verb 'tolerate'. When you suffer from an injury or an insult, you 'put up with it' or 'allow it', however reluctantly. As early as the Middle English period (say, the fourteenth century) our word 'suffer' meant either 'put up with, endure'; or 'allow, permit, let'.

'Let' has an interesting history. We have two verbs to 'let', both derived from old English (probably anciently connected), but now with quite separate meanings. The first of these verbs has a set of related senses: to permit; or to to release (to 'let' go); or to offer the use of a room or house in return for payment. The second is to hinder - as survives as a term in the game of tennis when the ball just served hits the net on the way over, and in the phrase 'let or hindrance'.
'Allow' is stranger still. It derives from the Old French verb alouer, itself evolved from the ancient Latin allaudere, meaning to praise, commend, approve (from L noun lauda = praise). The word 'allow' has weakened over the centuries, and far from implying 'praise' can be used now to denote grudging, disapproving, permisson: "I suppose so, if you really have to".

To 'permit' is also Latin-based, and carries the notion of 'official authority'. The Latin verb mittere means to 'send'. A person on a 'mission' was authorised, probably had a royal passport in the name of His or Her Britannic Majesty. We see this in the noun, a 'permit', a written authority. "I am afraid that smoking is not permitted" is the polite but pompous way of saying "You can't smoke here: the authorities say so."

Suffer, let, allow, permit