sympathy
pronunciation
How to pronounce sympathy in British English:
UK [ˈsɪmpəθi]
How to pronounce sympathy in American English:
US [ˈsɪmpəθi]
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- Noun:
- an inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinion
- sharing the feelings of others (especially feelings of sorrow or anguish)
- a relation of affinity or harmony between people; whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other
Word Origin
- sympathy
- sympathy: [16] Sympathy is etymologically ‘feeling with’ someone else. The word comes via Latin sympathīa from Greek sumpátheia, a derivative of sumpathés ‘feeling with or similarly to someone else’. This was a compound adjective formed from the prefix sun- ‘together, with, like’ and páthos ‘feeling’ (source of English pathetic [16], pathology [17], pathos [17], etc).=> pathetic, pathology, pathos
- sympathy (n.)
- 1570s, "affinity between certain things," from Middle French sympathie (16c.) and directly from Late Latin sympathia "community of feeling, sympathy," from Greek sympatheia "fellow-feeling, community of feeling," from sympathes "having a fellow feeling, affected by like feelings," from assimilated form of syn- "together" (see syn-) + pathos "feeling" (see pathos). In English, almost a magical notion at first; used in reference to medicines that heal wounds when applied to a cloth stained with blood from the wound. Meaning "conformity of feelings" is from 1590s; sense of "fellow feeling, compassion" is first attested c. 1600. An Old English loan-translation of sympathy was efensargung.
Synonym
Antonym
Example
- 1. Should I play the sympathy card with my boss ?
- 2. In all these ways sympathy has been politically effective .
- 3. They may find more sympathy as the election heats up .
- 4. I do have some sympathy with this excuse .
- 5. But don 't expect sympathy for that idea when the newspapers are full of fat cat headlines .