To sympathize means to understand and share someone else's feelings, especially when they're going through something difficult. When your friend is upset about losing a pet, and you feel sad for them because you can understand how much it hurts, you're sympathizing with them.

Sympathizing is different from just feeling sorry for someone from a distance. It means you're trying to connect with what they're experiencing. If your teammate misses the winning shot and feels terrible, you sympathize because you can imagine how disappointed they must feel. You might say, “I know how you feel” or “That must be really hard.”

When you sympathize, you're essentially feeling alongside another person, even if you haven't been through the exact same experience yourself.

People sometimes confuse sympathize with empathize, and they're close cousins. When you sympathize, you understand someone's feelings and feel concern for them. When you empathize, you put yourself in their shoes and feel what they're feeling as if it were happening to you. Both involve caring about others, but empathy goes a step deeper into actually experiencing their emotions.