Meaning & use
commiserate
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Meaning
verbintransitive
To express sympathy to someone about a loss or disappointment.
Grammar: No direct object; use with someone and often about/over something: commiserate with her over the result.
Patterns
- commiserate with someone
- commiserate with someone about/over something
- commiserate together
I called to commiserate with her after the rejection.
The fans gathered to commiserate over the defeat.
We spent the evening commiserating about our job interviews.
Word forms
| third person singular | commiserates |
|---|---|
| past tense | commiserated |
| past participle | commiserated |
| -ing form | commiserating |
Common combinations
- commiserate with a friend
- She brought coffee to commiserate with a friend after the breakup.
- commiserate over a loss
- Former players commiserated over the club's loss.
- commiserate together
- After the exam, we commiserated together in the cafeteria.
- briefly commiserate
- He stopped briefly to commiserate before returning to work.
Synonyms and how they differ
- sympathize
- More general and common; commiserate emphasizes sharing disappointment with someone.
- console
- Focuses on comforting the person; commiserate emphasizes joining them in sorrow.
- empathize
- Means understanding another's feelings, not necessarily expressing shared sorrow aloud.
Opposites
Word family
- commiseration noun
- The expression of shared sympathy for a misfortune.
Commonly confused: commiserate or commemorate?
commiserate vs commemorate
Commemorate means honor the memory of an event or person; commiserate means share sympathy after trouble.
Practice
After the team lost, the supporters gathered outside to ___ with the players.
Choose one answer.
Commiserate with someone means share sympathy after disappointment. Celebrate is the opposite reaction, while compete and complain do not fit the supportive pattern.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “commiserate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.