Consoling

Part of speech: adjective, verb

Definitions

1. Offering reassurance or sympathy to someone who is distressed or upset
2. Giving emotional support to ease someone's sorrow or pain
3. Expressing words or actions that help soothe and encourage someone in difficulty

Etymology: The verb "console" meaning to comfort someone in distress comes from Latin "consolari" and entered English through French "consoler," but the most surprising twist belongs to a different sense of the same word. In French, "console" first meant a bracket, the kind that holds up a shelf or a projecting beam. One explanation is that the bracket eases the load it carries, which would link it to comforting; another is that brackets were carved with a figure of a consoler, a comforting figure, and the name transferred to the object. The source treats these as competing possibilities rather than settled fact. From the bracket, the word spread to wall-mounted tables, then to free-standing tables set against a wall. Organ builders used "console" for the keyboard and control panel of an organ by the 1880s, and the usage spread to radio and television mixing desks in the 1930s. Mainframe computers of the 1950s, such as the IBM 704, adopted it for the operator's terminal, and the term then broadened to any equipment people interact with.

Synonyms: comforting, soothing, reassuring, calming, supportive

Antonyms: distressing, upsetting, troubling, worrying, dismaying