bear with me

Be patient, make allowances, put up with me. Today used mainly as a request to hear out a long-winded story or wait for a delayed result or event, this request appeared in John Heywood’s proverb collection of 1546. It may already have been considered somewhat archaic by Ben- jamin Franklin when he wrote, in An Added Chapter to the Book of Genesis (1763), “And couldst not thou . . . bear with him one night?”