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Sympathy vs Coddle - What's the difference?

sympathy | coddle |

As nouns the difference between sympathy and coddle

is that sympathy is a feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another; compassion while coddle is an irish dish comprising layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and bacon rashers with sliced potatoes and onions.

As a verb coddle is

to treat gently or with great care.

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)

    coddle

    English

    (wikipedia coddle)

    Verb

    (coddl)
  • To treat gently or with great care.
  • * 1855 , (William Makepeace Thackeray), (The Newcomes) , chapter 10 “Ethel and her Relations” ( ebook):
  • How many of our English princes have been coddled at home by their fond papas and mammas, walled up in inaccessible castles, with a tutor and a library, guarded by cordons of sentinels, sermoners, old aunts, old women from the world without, and have nevertheless escaped from all these guardians, and astonished the world by their extravagance and their frolics?
  • * Southey:
  • He [Lord Byron] never coddled his reputation.
  • To cook slowly in hot water that is below the boiling point.
  • * 1697 , (William Dampier), A New Voyage Round the World , volume 1, page 222 of 1699 edition:
  • It [the guava fruit] bakes as well as a Pear, and it may be coddled , and it makes good Pies.
  • To exercise excessive or damaging authority in an attempt to protect. To overprotect.
  • Synonyms

    * (treat gently) cosset, pamper, posset, spoil * (cook slowly) simmer

    Derived terms

    * mollycoddle

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An Irish dish comprising layers of roughly sliced pork sausages and bacon rashers with sliced potatoes and onions.