Consoled

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To have alleviated someone's feelings of grief or sadness by providing emotional support during a tough situation
2. Provided reassurance and sympathy to someone who was experiencing distress or sorrow
3. Acted to ease another person's emotional pain by expressing kindness and understanding

Etymology: This is an inflected form, so the story belongs to its base verb. "Console" came into English from French "consoler," which descends from Latin "cōnsōlor," meaning to offer solace or comfort. Its deeper ancestry is a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "mercy" or "comfort," the same root that gave English "solace." The more surprising twist lies in a different sense of the French noun "console." It first named a bracket, a support projecting from a wall to hold up a shelf or cornice. Scholars debate why. One possibility is that the bracket relieves the load, a kind of comfort for the structure. Another is that such brackets were carved with the figure of a "consolateur," a comforter, a Christian figure that lent the name a religious flavour. Only much later did the word come to mean a wall-mounted table and then a free-standing table placed against a wall, and eventually the control panel of a machine.

Synonyms: comforted, solaced, soothed, calmed, reassured

Antonyms: distressed, troubled, upset, agitated, tormented