sympathize
Americanverb (used without object)
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sympathizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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sympathized,
past participle, past
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sympathizing
present participle
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to be in sympathy or agreement of feeling; share in a feeling (often followed bywith ).
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to feel a compassionate sympathy, as for suffering or trouble (often followed bywith ).
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to express sympathy or condole (often followed bywith ).
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to be in approving accord, as with a person or cause.
to sympathize with a person's aims.
- Synonyms:
- support, back, favor, approve, understand
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to agree, correspond, or accord.
verb
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to feel or express compassion or sympathy (for); commiserate
he sympathized with my troubles
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to share or understand the sentiments or ideas (of); be in sympathy (with)
Usage
What does sympathize mean? To sympathize with someone is to feel sympathy for them—to share their emotions, especially sadness. This is usually understood to mean that you feel bad for them because they are in a negative situation. The word sympathize can also mean to offer one’s sympathies or condolences, such as to someone who is in mourning. Sympathize also sometimes means to be supportive of or loyal to someone or something, such as a leader or cause, as in Many working class voters sympathize with the senator’s platform. The word sympathizer is especially used to refer to someone who sympathizes in this way. Someone who sympathizes can be described as sympathetic. Sympathetic can also be used to describe someone who causes you to sympathize with them. Some people use the word sympathize interchangeably or in overlapping ways with the word empathize, which means to have empathy—to imagine or try to deeply understand what someone is feeling or what it’s like to be in their situation. However, others distinguish the two terms by emphasizing the importance of empathizing with others (feeling their pain) as opposed to sympathizing with them (feeling sorry for them). Example: I’ve experienced the same thing, so I can sympathize.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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sympathizernoun
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presympathizeverb (used without object)
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nonsympathizingadjective
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unsympathizedadjective
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unsympathizingadjective
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nonsympathizinglyadverb
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sympathizinglyadverb
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unsympathizinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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sympathizesimple
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sympathizessimple
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have sympathizedperfect
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has sympathizedperfect
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am sympathizingprogressive
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are sympathizingprogressive
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is sympathizingprogressive
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have been sympathizingperfect progressive
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has been sympathizingperfect progressive
Past
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sympathizedsimple
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had sympathizedperfect
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was sympathizingprogressive
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were sympathizingprogressive
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had been sympathizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sympathize
First recorded in 1580–90; from Middle French sympathiser; from sympath(ie) sympathy + -iser -ize
Explanation
When you sympathize, you care about how someone else feels during a time of trouble. If you sympathize with your brother, whose best friend is moving away, you understand why he's feeling sad. When you sympathize, you care, so you might sympathize with the victims of an earthquake in a foreign country or a child who's waiting for her turn on a merry-go-round. Sympathize comes from the Greek sympathes, have a fellow feeling for. It's sometimes confused with empathize, which means putting yourself in someone else's shoes, rather than simply caring about them.
Vocabulary lists containing sympathize
Nothing But the Truth
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The Martian Chronicles
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Charles and Emma
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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:
“I understand and sympathize with what the actors’ union was responding to,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
Plenty of people here sympathize with the mystery vigilante.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
You can’t help but sympathize with her desire to skip the coming crisis in her industry.
From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2026
"I wanted the audience to be able to sympathize with him at times, and be terrified of him at times," Antosca told AFP on the Los Angeles red carpet.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
“You can’t sympathize with the staff too much,” he told me, “or you risk not sympathizing with the patients.”
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
He repeats the tall tales, and he sympathizes with their struggles with wanderlust and the challenge of finding civilian clothes that fit and are affordable.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 7, 2025
While he sympathizes with the occasional need to chill at home, he also notes it's unsettling that it's a wildly popular discourse.
From Salon ● Jan. 19, 2025
Mayor Chris Bubser said she sympathizes with the growing anxiety around deportations, but hopes the strike doesn’t materialize.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2024
While he sympathizes with the financial challenges restaurants are facing, he said the charge “really kind of stung.”
From New York Times ● Mar. 11, 2024
Her eyes tighten, enough for me to know that some part of her sympathizes with me, even if she’ll never admit it.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
He not only sympathized with our loss but also shared our heartbreak as he described his own very personal connection to the Palisades fire.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 8, 2026
Jeremias, a nurse, said she sympathized with Mangione’s feeling of hopelessness.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 30, 2025
In 2023, according to New York Times polling, 34 percent of Democrats sympathized with Israel and 31 percent with Palestinians.
From Slate ● Oct. 23, 2025
Many people sympathized with the workers and even called for Costco to start revoking memberships.
From Salon ● Aug. 29, 2024
Half of Dusty sympathized with one boy, half of him with the other, in this quarrel.
From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes
Hitchcock beguiles us into sympathizing with the psychopathic Bruno.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
Back in the courthouse, almost three years after Ozy’s collapse, I found myself sympathizing with Watson, against my better judgment.
From Slate ● Dec. 12, 2024
"Something about Bowen being the one to voice this joke despite his interview with Chappell sympathizing with her concerns less than a month ago makes me sad," one person wrote in a post to X.
From Salon ● Sep. 30, 2024
Protesters gather outside the facility regularly, and in May, Casper Mayor Bruce Knell apologized for a Facebook post about the clinic some interpreted as sympathizing with the fire attack.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 21, 2023
“I didn’t have a father at my wedding,” Terryl says, sympathizing.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
