Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “sympathy” come from?

I need to work through this chain carefully, but I notice there's a significant problem: the chain provided doesn't coherently connect to "sympathy." The chain given appears jumbled or incorrectly ordered. Let me identify what's wrong: - "sympathy" comes from Ancient Greek "sympatheia" (συμπάθεια) = "syn-" (with) + "pathos" (feeling) - The chain you've provided mixes morphemes (-pathy, -y, σύν) with unrelated Indo-European roots (som-, Latin -ia, -ivus, -kos) that don't form a logical etymological path to "sympathy" The Latin and Proto-Indo-European elements in your chain don't connect to the Greek roots that actually form "sympathy." **I cannot write an accurate one-sentence summary because the etymological chain itself appears corrupted or incorrectly assembled

sympathy (English): A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or...

Definitions

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

Ancestry of “sympathy”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Frenchsympathiesympathy; harmony
2Latinsympathīa—
3Ancient Greekσυμπάθειαfellow feeling, sympathy; affection, affinity;...
4Ancient Greekσυμπαθής—
5Ancient Greek-ήςadjective suffix
6Proto-Indo-European-ēsPrimarily forms adjectival bahuvrīhi compounds
7Proto-Indo-European-ess—
8Proto-Indo-European-osCreates action nouns or result nouns from verbs;...

Words derived from “sympathy”

  • unsympathy
  • sympathist
  • dissympathy
Every word from Proto-Indo-European -os →