sympathize

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French sympathiser,^[2][3][4][5] formed from sympathie (“sympathy”) and -iser (“-ize”).^[2][6][7] The French noun is from Late Latin sympathia,^[2][3] from Ancient Greek συμπάθεια (sumpátheia, “fellow-feeling”), from συμπαθής (sumpathḗs, “having a fellow feeling”), from σύν (sún, “together”) and πάθος (páthos, “suffering, feeling”), related to πάσχω (páskhō, “to suffer”).^[4][8] The OED compares simpatizzare.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To correspond to or match: 1594, in Shakespeare's Lucrece, a transitive sense now obsolete.^[4][2] The intransitive "to suffer with or like another, to be affected because something else is affected" follows in 1598, in a translation of Guillemeau's Frenche Chirurgerye;^[4] Etymonline dates this use in physiology and pathology, of organs and body parts, to the 1590s.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In the years around 1600 the verb had a cluster of senses, now obsolete, that came from the older meaning of sympathy as an affinity between things: to correspond or match (1594–1606), to agree or harmonize (1601–1709) and to be alike in nature (1605–68).^[4][8] The modern emotional sense, to share another's feelings, is recorded from 1607, in Jonson's Volpone,^[4] and Etymonline dates "have fellow-feeling" to about 1600.^[8] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to feel with another".^[9] The sense "to express sympathy, to condole" appears in 1748 in Smollett's Roderick Random, at first as a colloquial use,^[4][8] and the weakened sense "to agree with, be inclined to favour", as in sympathizing with a party, from 1828.^[4][8]

Timeline

• 1594 – transitive, to correspond to, match (obsolete by 1606).^[4][2]
• 1598 – to be affected because something else is affected, especially of body parts.^[4]
• 1601 – to agree, harmonize (obsolete by 1709).^[4]
• 1605 – to be alike in nature or fortune (obsolete by 1668).^[4]
• 1607 – to share the feelings of another, feel sympathy.^[4]
• 1748 – to express sympathy, condole.^[4][8]
• 1828 – to agree with an opinion or party.^[4][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To feel or express compassion for someone's trouble; to commiserate: I sympathize with anyone who has to commute that far.^[10][2][4]
2. To share or support someone's views or aims: Many voters sympathized with the strikers.^[10][4]
3. To be affected by a condition of something else, as one organ of the body by a disorder of another.^[2][4]
4. (obsolete) To correspond to or match.^[2][4]

Word family

• sympathizer
• sympathizingly
• unsympathized

Related words

• sympathetic
• sympathy
• pathos

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins