compassionate
Americanadjective
-
having or showing compassion.
a compassionate person; a compassionate letter.
- Synonyms:
- tender, sympathetic, pitying
-
granted in an emergency.
compassionate military leave granted to attend a funeral.
-
Obsolete. pitiable.
verb (used with object)
adjective
-
showing or having compassion
-
leave granted, esp to a serviceman, on the grounds of bereavement, family illness, etc
Usage
What does compassionate mean? Compassionate means having compassion—a feeling of sympathy or pity for others, especially one that makes you want to help them. Being compassionate typically means you care and you want to help. The word can describe a person, their actions, or a situation that involves or is based on compassion. The word compassion is sometimes used interchangeably with sympathy, and compassionate is sometimes used to mean sympathetic, which most most commonly means sharing emotions with someone else, especially sadness. These words are all used in the context of feeling sorry for people who are in negative situations. But being compassionate is often understood as having a feeling that motivates you to help them. The opposite of being compassionate is being uncompassionate—indifferent or cold-hearted. The word compassionate can also be used in a more specific way to mean granted in circumstances that call for compassion. The word is used this way in the phrase compassionate leave, which refers to permission to be absent, such as from military duty, due to a death or illness in the family or other personal reasons. Example: We should be compassionate toward others because that’s how we want to be treated.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of compassionate
First recorded in 1580–90; compassion + -ate 1
Explanation
If you are compassionate, you feel other people's pain and struggles as though they were your own. Compassionate people are often moved to work to end the suffering of others, perhaps by feeding the hungry or educating the poor. Compassionate comes from the Old French noun compassion, which means "sympathy, pity." The adjective, pronounced "cuhm-PASH-uh-nuht," means "sympathetic," like a compassionate friend who shares in your joys and sadnesses, wanting the best for you. As a verb, compassionate, here pronounced "cuhm-PASH-uh-nate," means "pity," as in your ability to compassionate with stray dogs and cats.
Vocabulary lists containing compassionate
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Positive Adjectives to Describe People
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"The Diary of Anne Frank," Vocabulary from the drama
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Is it compassionate to leave people detached from reality out on the cold street, or to police when something terrible happens?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
As well as reminding its existing employees of the principles of compassionate care, the trust has embedded a question about it into its recruitment processes.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Ahead of Baby Loss Awareness Week she has written and published a compassionate guide to help others, called The Silence Of TFMR.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
“You have to be compassionate about someone being injured,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
A compassionate, humane approach to the problems of the urban poor must replace the punitive practices and policies that have multiplied the harms associated with poverty and racial oppression.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
Fersen, touched and pitying, was constantly thinking of that fatal palace of the Tuileries where the Queen was so much to be compassionated.
From Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty by Arthur Léon, baron Imbert de Saint-Amand
When ter- precedes per-, one of the particles drops its final letter; as te-per-sayang, compassionated; ter-pe-lanting, sent flying.
From A Manual of the Malay language With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay by Sir William Edward Maxwell
Her punishment was regarded as a creditable act of justice, and the King was compassionated as a sufferer from abominable ingratitude.
From The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon The Story as Told by the Imperial Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry VIII by J.A. Froude
He won his confidence, genuinely compassionated his anxieties, and presently pledged himself to a most kindly office—the care and provision in future for the child soon to be fatherless; long before this time motherless.
From The Square of Sevens An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note by Edward Prime-Stevenson
In the history of literature nothing can be found so much to be compassionated as the life led by him during those summer months in the great city.
From Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of the Lives of More Than 200 of the Most Prominent Personages in History by Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
Mr. Hearne is hardly sympathetic toward those who wrong women, but I hear “Consent” as compassionating all of us who have been bequeathed unequal, curdled social relations.
From New York Times ● Dec. 21, 2017
“A body can’t play a symphony next to a man, without compassionating with his woes.”
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
He turned, and stood regarding him with a proud, lofty, compassionating smile.
From Cudjo's Cave by J. T. (John Townsend) Trowbridge
Nay, even though you had just before fallen down and broken your leg, would the compassionating by-standers be justified in forcing him to take you in?
From Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics With Some of Their Applications by William Thomas Thornton
It is the sort of compassionating, commiserating estimate imaginative girls occasionally get up for dreary depressed fellows, constituting themselves discoverers of intellect that no one ever suspected—revealers of wealth that none had ever dreamed of.
From A Rent In A Cloud by Charles James Lever
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