sympathy

plural sympathies

1. countableuncountableA 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.

   2018, Sergeant first class Greg Stube, Conquer Anything: A Green Beret’s Guide to Building Your A-Team

   1 more example

   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.

   2025 July 13, Aaron Blake, “Trump’s mass deportation is backfiring”, in CNN, archived from the original on 17 Jul 2025

   Synonyms: compassion, pity, bowels, commiseration, compassion, empathy, fellow feeling, mercy

   1. countablein pluraluncountableThe 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.

      2004 September 10, Edward Tverdek, “When Libertarians Go Shopping”, in Chicago Reader

      Synonyms: compassion, pity, bowels, commiseration, compassion, empathy, fellow feeling, mercy

   2. countableuncountableThe ability to share the feelings of another.

      Synonyms: compassion, pity, bowels, commiseration, compassion, empathy, fellow feeling, mercy

2. countableuncountableInclination 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.

   c. 1588–1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: […] (First Quarto), London: […] Iohn Danter, and are to be sold by Edward White & Thomas Millington, […], published 1594, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], signature F, recto

   1. countablein pluraluncountableSupport in the form of shared feelings or opinions.
   2. countableuncountableFeeling 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.

3. countableuncountableAn affinity, association or mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.

   Sympathy likened anything to anything else in universal attraction, e.g. the fate of men to the course of the planets.

   1997, Chris Horrocks, “The Renaissance Episteme”, in Introducing Foucault, Totem Books; Icon Books, →ISBN, page 67

   3 more examples

   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.

   1858, William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences

   A peculiarity of were-animals is the sympathy that exists between their animal form and that of the human with whom it is connected.

   1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 121

   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.

   1960 December, “The riding of B.R. coaches”, in Trains Illustrated, page 706

   1. countableuncountableMutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it.
   2. countableuncountableartArtistic harmony, as of shape or colour in a painting.