English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
What does 'put up with' mean in comtext?
—Home, Meg thought comfortably, and regarded her parents and brothers with affectionate gratitude. They had put up with her all through her prickly adolescence, and she still did not feel very grown up.
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by MADELEINE L’ENGLE
According to Collins,
If you put up with something, you tolerate or accept it, even though you find it unpleasant or unsatisfactory.
During the entire period of her growing up from being a child into an adult, her parents and brothers had to tolerate/endure/bear her rude and inappropriate behavior or tolerate her meltdowns, lack of communication, carelessness, etc.
Collins says "something that is prickly feels rough and uncomfortable, as if it has a lot of prickles. Someone who is prickly loses their temper or gets upset very easily" (like teenagers). Cambridge defines prickly as "complicated and difficult to deal with."
It means that her family "tolerated" and "endured" her behavior during that time.
