sympathy

A feeling of sadness and care for someone who is suffering or having problems.

• I felt sympathy for her.
• Please accept our deepest sympathy for your loss.
• The victims received messages of sympathy from around the world.

How to use it: sympathy for someone (I felt sympathy for the injured driver.); express sympathy to someone (We expressed our sympathy to the family.)

Similar words: compassion, pity

Opposites: indifference

Common phrases: feel sympathy, deep sympathy, sympathy for someone

The ability to understand how another person feels and share those feelings.

• She listened with understanding and sympathy.
• His sympathy helped me explain my fears.
• Having faced similar problems, she felt real sympathy with him.

How to use it: sympathy with someone (Her own experience gave her sympathy with the children.)

Similar words: empathy, understanding

Common phrases: sympathy with someone, human sympathy, understanding and sympathy

Support for or agreement with a person, group, idea, or aim.

• He has sympathy for their aims.
• Her political sympathies changed over time.
• Workers marched in sympathy with the striking nurses.

How to use it: sympathy for something (There is growing sympathy for their cause.); in sympathy with someone/something (Other workers stopped work in sympathy with the drivers.)

Similar words: support, approval, agreement

Opposites: opposition

Common phrases: sympathy for something, in sympathy with, political sympathies

A close connection between people who respond to things in similar ways.

• A quiet sympathy grew between them.
• Their shared interests created a sympathy of minds.
• Despite their differences, they found a deep mutual sympathy.

How to use it: sympathy between people (There was a natural sympathy between the two writers.)

Similar words: affinity, rapport

Common phrases: mutual sympathy, sympathy between people, sympathy of minds

A connection between body parts in which a change in one affects another.

• The physician described sympathy between organs.
• Early doctors explained some symptoms through bodily sympathy.
• The author attributed the distant pain to sympathy with the injured organ.

How to use it: sympathy between organs (The old medical text describes sympathy between the stomach and the heart.)

Common phrases: sympathy between organs, sympathy of organs, bodily sympathy