Sympathise

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of sympathize. UK, alt-of, nonstandard

    "‘[…] who is to hunt up my witnesses? All of them are sailors, drafted off to other ships, except those whose evidence would go for very little, as they took part, or sympathised in the affair. […]’"

  2. 2
    be understanding of wordnet
  3. 3
    to feel or express sympathy or compassion wordnet
  4. 4
    share the feelings of; understand the sentiments of wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
commiseratecommiserateempathiseempathizesympathizesympathize

Example

More examples

"She felt that she could sympathise with the feelings of a proud mind, which urged him to recoil from the proffered gratitude of the new proprietors of his father's house and domains."

Etymology

Borrowed from French sympathiser. By surface analysis, sympathy + -ise.

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