sympathyとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

Borrowed from Middle French sympathie, from Late Latin sympathīa (“feeling in common”), from Ancient Greek σῠμπᾰ́θειᾰ (sŭmpắtheiă, “fellow feeling”), from σῠμπᾰθής (sŭmpăthḗs, “affected by like feelings; exerting mutual influence, interacting”) +‎ -ῐᾰ (-ĭă, “-y”, nominal suffix). Equivalent to sym- (“acting or considered together”) +‎ -pathy (“feeling”).

発音

• IPA: /ˈsɪm.pəθ.i/
• 韻: -ɪmpəθi

名詞

sympathy (countable and uncountable, plural sympathies)

1. A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another.

   Synonyms: compassion, pity; see also Thesaurus:compassion

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

     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.

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

     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.

   1. (in the plural) The formal expression of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune.
      • 2004 September 10, Edward Tverdek, “When Libertarians Go Shopping”, in Chicago Reader‎:

        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.

   2. The ability to share the feelings of another.
2. Inclination to think or feel alike; emotional or intellectual accord; common feeling.
   • 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:

     Oh vvhat a ſimpathie of vvoe is this, / As farre from helpe, as Lymbo is from bliſſe.

   1. (in the plural) Support in the form of shared feelings or opinions.
   2. Feeling 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. An affinity, association or mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.
   • 1858, William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences:

     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.

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

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

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

     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.

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

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

   1. Mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it.
   2. (art) Artistic harmony, as of shape or colour in a painting.

反意語

• apathy
• antipathy
• contempt (context-dependent)
• dissympathy

派生語

参照

• “sympathy”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “sympathy”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.