What's the difference between commiserate and sympathy?

Commiserate


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To feel sorrow, pain, or regret for; to pity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When I commiserate about the overnight flight that brought them here, Linney gives a wry grimace.
  • (2) Commiserations to the Dutch, but they didn't really turn up tonight, and were very poor.
  • (3) Why not come and celebrate or commiserate with a dip in the pool?
  • (4) With such knowledge comes a predictable illusion of power, though this is all too regularly punctured by the indignity of being kicked out of shiny receptions and told to use an entrance more befitting of our lowly status – or of having my pronunciation of “Southwark Street” incorrectly corrected by a receptionist, who gives her colleague a sidelong smirk, commiserating over my supposed ignorance.
  • (5) "The president commiserates with all the families who lost loved ones in the heinous attacks and extends his heartfelt sympathies to all those who suffered injuries or lost their properties during the wanton assaults on Bauchi and Kaduna States," said a statement.
  • (6) Putin thanked leaders of other countries for their commiseration, the Kremlin press service announced.
  • (7) Blair texted him with "commiserations" as did Brown, Coulson revealed.
  • (8) The deputy prime minister took the opportunity to claim that the first person to call Coulson to commiserate on his resignation was Labour former prime minister Gordon Brown.
  • (9) But while the arrival of the baby in question will be a cause for celebration for the parents, it is a matter for commiseration for the rest of us.
  • (10) When David Cameron phoned Ed Miliband on Monday morning with a briefing on Libya they commiserated with each other about being in the doghouse with their families for having broken off their holidays.
  • (11) Liquidation looks likely as MPs go home to commiserate with their local fallen councillors, and the Lib Dems overtake Labour.
  • (12) Even as Netanyahu took credit for the release of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit , welcoming him home in person at Tel Nof airbase, he was offering heartfelt commiserations to the relatives of Israelis killed by the Palestinian prisoners he freed in exchange.
  • (13) Instead, Boehner has offered McConnell not compromise but commiserations.
  • (14) Within seconds Bouchard was offering commiserations at the net.
  • (15) Richard Dawkins Oxford • I would like to congratulate Sarah Olney on becoming our new MP in Richmond Park, and give my commiserations to Zac Goldsmith.
  • (16) My trip back to commiserate with loved ones can wait a few weeks.
  • (17) ‘I’m sorry for my role as an adult’ The Seattle Resistance Salon was created partly to find others to commiserate with.
  • (18) Well done to everyone who got the results they wanted today, and commiserations to those that didn't.
  • (19) Asked to offer commiserations, Pellegrini said: “It is a pity for them.
  • (20) Mahmoud Muhim, the father of one of the dead protesters, took the microphone during the march and said: "Not one person has offered me commiserations.

Sympathy


Definition:

  • (n.) Feeling corresponding to that which another feels; the quality of being affected by the affection of another, with feelings correspondent in kind, if not in degree; fellow-feeling.
  • (n.) An agreement of affections or inclinations, or a conformity of natural temperament, which causes persons to be pleased, or in accord, with one another; as, there is perfect sympathy between them.
  • (n.) Kindness of feeling toward one who suffers; pity; commiseration; compassion.
  • (n.) The reciprocal influence exercised by the various organs or parts of the body on one another, as manifested in the transmission of a disease by unknown means from one organ to another quite remote, or in the influence exerted by a diseased condition of one part on another part or organ, as in the vomiting produced by a tumor of the brain.
  • (n.) That relation which exists between different persons by which one of them produces in the others a state or condition like that of himself. This is shown in the tendency to yawn which a person often feels on seeing another yawn, or the strong inclination to become hysteric experienced by many women on seeing another person suffering with hysteria.
  • (n.) A tendency of inanimate things to unite, or to act on each other; as, the sympathy between the loadstone and iron.
  • (n.) Similarity of function, use office, or the like.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Hulk Hogan’s status as a public figure, even one who holds forth often and at length about his sex life, may have kept him from getting the kind of sympathy that the subject of the escort story immediately received, but there’s no evidence Bollea intended for anyone to see the tape.
  • (2) Former Tory minister Edwina Currie has tweeted that she had "no sympathy" for food bank users, that they were just "opportunists".
  • (3) With Fury, I’m not going to have no remorse, I’m not going to have no sympathy.
  • (4) I have no quarrel with the overall thrust of Andrew Rawnsley's argument that the south-east is over-dominant in the UK economy and, as someone who has lived and worked both in Cardiff and Newcastle upon Tyne, I have sympathy with the claims of the north-east of England as well as Wales (" No wonder the coalition hasn't many friends in the north ", Comment).
  • (5) He added: “I have no sympathy for real paedophiles.
  • (6) But obviously if people have been injured or indeed killed that is a tragedy and our sympathies are with the victims and their families.” He added: “We never condone violence – whatever the cause.
  • (7) A Facebook page created for friends, family and well-wishers to write messages of sympathy was filling with tributes.
  • (8) Kafka's faceless and amoral heroes, on the other hand, inspire no sympathy at all.
  • (9) There was little sympathy from the Lib Dems' coalition partners in the Conservative party.
  • (10) A year after the establishment of the so-called caliphate by Islamic State , western governments are struggling for strategies to challenge sympathy among their citizens towards the militants.
  • (11) You could think the narrator's extreme failures of sympathy are despicable, but this would surely be beside the point.
  • (12) Its coverage was so vindictive and blatantly unfair that it succeeded in winning sympathy for the prime minister, not an easy thing to do these days.
  • (13) The curator Clare Browne has a certain sympathy for Bock – “he was a serious collector, and he saved many pieces which would otherwise certainly have been destroyed” – but even she is startled that he ran his scissors straight through the figure of Christ, sparing only the face, which ended up in the V&A’s half.
  • (14) Speaking at a press conference following the preview of his latest film, Melancholia, von Trier expressed sympathy for Hitler, remarked that Israel was "a pain in the arse" and jokingly confessed to being a Nazi .
  • (15) The Labour leader is determined to retain autonomy on policy and to avoid being dictated to by his party when he is not in sympathy with the message it is giving him.
  • (16) Too many of his answers start with, “I have some sympathy with what you say, but...”; he comes across as just another politician.
  • (17) He has little sympathy for those displaced along the way.
  • (18) This includes the carbon content of fuels, driver behaviour, infrastructure, as well as the potential of car connectivity and intelligent transport systems (ITS).” The industry’s position has won the sympathy of oil companies, which also oppose fuel economy targets for 2025 and 2030.
  • (19) "I've got a great deal of sympathy with the situationist position.
  • (20) Perhaps monstering earns underdog sympathy, with contempt for the press as rife as contempt for conventional politics.