COMPASSIONATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does compassionate mean? 

• COMPASSIONATE (adjective)
  The adjective COMPASSIONATE has 1 sense:

1. showing or having compassion

  Familiarity information: COMPASSIONATE used as an adjective is very rare.

• COMPASSIONATE (verb)
  The verb COMPASSIONATE has 1 sense:

1. share the suffering of

  Familiarity information: COMPASSIONATE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COMPASSIONATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Showing or having compassion

Context example:

heard the soft and compassionate voices of women

Similar:

caring (feeling and exhibiting concern and empathy for others)

nurturant (providing physical and emotional care and nourishment)

tenderhearted (easily moved by another's distress)

Also:

humane (marked or motivated by concern with the alleviation of suffering)

merciful (showing or giving mercy)

sympathetic (expressing or feeling or resulting from sympathy or compassion or friendly fellow feelings; disposed toward)

Antonym:

uncompassionate (lacking compassion or feeling for others)

Derivation:

compassion (the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it)

compassion; compassionateness (a deep awareness of and sympathy for another's suffering)

• COMPASSIONATE (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Share the suffering of

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

compassionate; condole with; feel for; pity; sympathize with

Hypernyms (to "compassionate" is one way to...):

grieve; sorrow (feel grief)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "compassionate"):

commiserate; sympathise; sympathize (to feel or express sympathy or compassion)

care (feel concern or interest)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

compassion (the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it)

compassion (a deep awareness of and sympathy for another's suffering)

 Context examples 

Expanded Access studies include individual-patient IND, treatment IND, compassionate use, emergency use or continued access.

(Expanded Access Study, NCI Thesaurus)

I watch your career with interest, because I consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman: not because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what you still suffer.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Yet will I be compassionate, and take you in, if you will do what I wish.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

There was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his voice and manner, more intolerable—at least to me—than any demeanour he could have assumed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Compassionate use trials allow patients to receive promising but not yet fully studied or approved cancer therapies when no other treatment option exists.

(Compassionate Treatment, NCI Dictionary)

Your partner seems to exhibit Capricorn personality traits (but not necessarily be a Capricorn), being less emotional than you but also far less nurturing and compassionate than you’d like.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Her kind, compassionate visits to this old schoolfellow, sick and reduced, seemed to have quite delighted Mr Elliot.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

A means for providing compassionate use of investigational agents between the time that an agent has been shown to have anti-tumor activity and the time that drug becomes available on the market.

(Group C/Treatment IND Protocol, NCI Thesaurus)

Few people who have so compassionate a heart!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Darcy, in wretched suspense, could only say something indistinctly of his concern, and observe her in compassionate silence.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)