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Symptom vs Sympathy - What's the difference?

symptom | sympathy |

As nouns the difference between symptom and sympathy

is that symptom is a perceived change in some function, sensation or appearance of a person that indicates a disease or disorder, such as fever, headache or rash while sympathy is a feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another; compassion.

symptom

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (medicine) A perceived change in some function, sensation or appearance of a person that indicates a disease or disorder, such as fever, headache or rash.
  • A signal; anything that indicates, or is characteristic of, the presence of something else, especially of something undesirable.
  • Synonyms

    * indication * manifestation * sign, signal * See also

    Antonyms

    * Treatment of symptoms versus treatment of cause

    Derived terms

    * symptomatology * symptomless

    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)