Meaning & use
compassionately
Last updated
Meaning
adverbcomparable
In a way that shows kindness toward someone who is suffering and a wish to ease their pain.
Grammar: Goes with an action: she spoke compassionately. It can take more or most.
Patterns
- treat someone compassionately
- respond compassionately
The nurse compassionately held the old man's hand while he waited for news.
She listened compassionately as her friend described the divorce.
Judges must apply the law firmly but also compassionately.
Word forms
| comparative | more compassionately |
|---|---|
| superlative | most compassionately |
Common combinations
- listen compassionately
- A good counselor listens compassionately without interrupting.
- treat someone compassionately
- Patients should be treated compassionately and with respect.
- respond compassionately
- The town responded compassionately to the flood victims.
- care compassionately
- Volunteers care compassionately for abandoned animals.
- speak compassionately
- He spoke compassionately about the families who had lost their homes.
Synonyms and how they differ
- kindly
- It describes general gentleness and does not require that the other person is in distress, which compassionately does.
- sympathetically
- It stresses understanding someone's feelings, while compassionately adds a wish to help.
- tenderly
- It suggests physical or emotional softness, like touching a child's cheek, and is warmer and more intimate.
- mercifully
- It often means showing leniency to someone with power over them, as in sentencing.
Opposites
Word family
- compassion noun
- deep sympathy and wish to help
- compassionate adjective
- feeling or showing compassion
- dispassionate adjective
- calm and not influenced by emotion
- passion noun
- strong feeling
Commonly confused: compassionately or passionately?
compassionately vs passionately
Passionately means with strong feeling, such as anger or love. Compassionately means with kindness toward suffering.
Practice
When the child began to cry, the teacher knelt down and spoke ____ to him.
Choose one answer.
Compassionately fits a gentle response to a crying child. Passionately means with strong feeling, which does not show kindness toward suffering.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “compassionately”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.