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Emphasis vs Sympathy - What's the difference?

emphasis | sympathy |

As nouns the difference between emphasis and sympathy

is that emphasis is special weight or forcefulness given to something considered important while sympathy is a feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another; compassion.

emphasis

English

(wikipedia emphasis)

Noun

(emphases)
  • Special weight or forcefulness given to something considered important.
    • He paused for emphasis before saying who had won.
  • Special attention or prominence given to something.
    • Anglia TV's emphasis is on Norwich and district.
  • Prominence given to a syllable or words, by raising the voice or printing in italic or underlined type.
    • He used a yellow highlighter to indicate where to give emphasis in his speech.
  • (typography) Related to bold.

    • Related terms

    * emphasise, emphasize * emphatic

    Anagrams

    * ----

    sympathy

    English

    (wikipedia sympathy)

    Noun

    (sympathies)
  • A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another; compassion.
  • The ability to share the feelings of another.
  • A mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.
  • * 1997 , Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault'', page 67, ''The Renaissance Episteme (Totem Books, Icon Books; ISBN 1840460865)
    • 'Sympathy' likened anything to anything else in universal attraction, e.g. the fate of men to the course of the planets.
  • Tendency towards or approval of the aims of a movement.

    • Usage notes

    * Used similarly to empathy, interchangeably in looser usage. In stricter usage, (term) is stronger and more intimate, while sympathy is weaker and more distant; see .

    Antonyms

    * contempt (context-dependent)

    Derived terms

    * (l) * (l) * (l), (l)