sympathy
nouncommon in dialogue
- //ˈsɪm.pəθ.i//
A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another.
noun
- 1
A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another.
If you want sympathy you’ll find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. Sympathy may pay well in the short term, but if you cash in on sympathy, it will take everything from you in the long run.
And all told, Trump’s second term has actually led to the most sympathy for migrants on record in the 21st century, per Gallup. Fully 79% of Americans now say immigration is a “good thing,” compared with 64% last year.
- 2
A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another. The formal expression of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune.
While you'll probably have her sympathies if your condominium association wants to preapprove your storm door, you'll need to work harder for her support if your boss at the music megastore demands you grow a goatee to help lend the place some indie cred.
- 3
A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another. The ability to share the feelings of another.
- 4
Inclination to think or feel alike; emotional or intellectual accord; common feeling.
Oh vvhat a ſimpathie of vvoe is this, / As farre from helpe, as Lymbo is from bliſſe.
- 5
Inclination to think or feel alike; emotional or intellectual accord; common feeling. Support in the form of shared feelings or opinions.
- 6
Inclination to think or feel alike; emotional or intellectual accord; common feeling. Feeling of loyalty; tendency towards, agreement with or approval of an opinion or aim; a favorable attitude.
Many people in Hollywood were blacklisted merely because they were suspected of Communist sympathies.
- 7
An affinity, association or mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.
He observed, also, the frequent sympathy of volcanic and terremotive action in remote districts of the earth's surface, thus showing how deeply seated must be the cause of these convulsions.
A peculiarity of were-animals is the sympathy that exists between their animal form and that of the human with whom it is connected.
The solution to coach riding defects, at least, seems to require much more co-operative practical experiment by all engineering departments to achieve better sympathy between the vehicle body, its undercarriage and the track on which it rides.
Sympathy likened anything to anything else in universal attraction, e.g. the fate of men to the course of the planets.
- 8
An affinity, association or mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition. Mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it.
- 9
An affinity, association or mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition. Artistic harmony, as of shape or colour in a painting.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French sympathie, from Late Latin sympathīa (“feeling in common”), from Ancient Greek σῠμπᾰ́θειᾰ (sŭmpắtheiă, “fellow feeling”), from σῠμπᾰθής (sŭmpăthḗs, “affected by like feelings; exerting mutual influence, interacting”) + -ῐᾰ (-ĭă, “-y”, nominal suffix). Equivalent to sym- (“acting or considered together”) + -pathy (“feeling”).
Forms
- plural
- sympathies
sympathy · A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another.
symphony · An extended piece of music of sophisticated structure,…symptom · A perceived change in some function, sensation or appearance…synagogue · A place of worship for Jews.