Condoled

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Offered words or gestures to show sympathy and support to someone experiencing sorrow or loss
2. Communicated condolences to a person to comfort them during a time of mourning or hardship
3. Shared sympathy with someone grieving by expressing kindness and understanding

Etymology: "Condoled" is the past tense of "condole," a verb that means to offer sympathy to someone in grief. The verb was borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin "condolēre," which combined "con-," meaning "together," with "doleō," meaning "to suffer pain, grieve, or lament." Its earliest sense was literally to suffer alongside another person, so the original idea was shared pain rather than polite consolation. The Latin "doleō" traces back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to divide, split," and the same root gave English the word "dole," in the sense of a portion or share. Grief, in other words, was once imagined as something split between people, with the mourner and the comforter each taking a part of it.

Synonyms: sympathized, condoled

Antonyms: disregarded, ignored, dismissed