People who experience pain, illness, hardship, or other unpleasant conditions.
From suffer (Latin sufferre: sub- meaning under, and ferre meaning to bear), plus -er for agent, plus -s for plural. The word has meant 'to endure' for 700+ years.
The word 'suffer' originally meant literally 'to bear up under' like bearing a heavy load—so when we talk about suffering, we're using an image from agricultural or physical labor to describe emotional pain, showing how language maps feelings onto bodies.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.