Abstract: It is an effort to understand a central word for thinking the West and what we have become. It is the term tolerance, which has antecedents that evidence its relative origin to suffer, to bear, to weigh, to compare. It is a term that holds certain ambiguities, since it works as a modern option for overcoming conflicts (mainly religious), while it has its own practical and conceptual limits. The retreat that will be done here intends to follow the senses implied in the root that gives rise to this modern term. By means of the proto-European hypothesis an incursion into Sanskrit, Greek and Latin will be made to see how the root that endures in the word tolerance produces its meanings in other words of these languages.
Keywords:
Anthropology; Etymology; Protoindo-europea; Tolerance; Modernity.