Commiseration

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of commiserating; sorrow for the hardships or afflictions of another; pity; compassion. countable, uncountable

    "But her assertion soon proved its truth. That very evening I met both the Duc de Joyeuse and Mademoiselle Guerchy;—a slight embarrassment on his part, a little air of triumphant impertinence on hers, and an affected but insolent commiseration from Mademoiselle de Guise, told the whole."

  2. 2
    an expression of sympathy with another's grief wordnet
  3. 3
    a feeling of sympathy and sorrow for the misfortunes of others wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
pityruthbalmbenevolencebowelsclemency

Example

More examples

"But her assertion soon proved its truth. That very evening I met both the Duc de Joyeuse and Mademoiselle Guerchy;—a slight embarrassment on his part, a little air of triumphant impertinence on hers, and an affected but insolent commiseration from Mademoiselle de Guise, told the whole."

Etymology

From Middle French commisération.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.