sympathize

verb

1. (Canada, US, intransitive)To have, show or express sympathy; to be affected by feelings similar to those of another, in consequence of knowing the person to be thus affected

   “[…] the Authors having chosen for their Heroes Persons who were so nearly related to the People for whom they wrote. Achilles was a Greek, and Aeneas the remote Founder of Rome. By this Means their Countrymen (whom they principally proposed to themselves for their Readers) were particularly attentive to all the Parts of their Story, and sympathized with their Heroes in all their Adventures.”

   “Some old people keep young at heart in spite of wrinkles and gray hairs, can sympathize with children’s little cares and joys, make them feel at home, and can hide wise lessons under pleasant plays, giving and receiving friendship in the sweetest way.”

   ““I can’t quite sympathise with your mother in all her feelings about this marriage, because I do not think that I recognise as she does the necessity of money.””

   “The wives were sympathizing with each other in slightly raised voices.”

2. (Canada, US, intransitive)To support, favour, have sympathy (with a political cause or movement, a side in a conflict / in an action).

   “‘[…] who is to hunt up my witnesses? All of them are sailors, drafted off to other ships, except those whose evidence would go for very little, as they took part, or sympathised in the affair. […]’”

   ““Whether one sympathises with the agitation for female suffrage or not one has to admit that its promoters showed tireless energy and considerable enterprise in devising and putting into action new methods for accomplishing their ends. […]””

   “[…] naturally the British aristocracy sympathized with the Confederacy, as one aristocrat with another, against a race of dollar lovers like the Yankees.”

   “He’d go to […] Soviet Russia—now giving us the whole story, that he sympathized with the Reds and admired Lenin […]”

   “President Obama in a speech this past week said that we should solve the nation's bee problem. Oh, God, we elected a guy who sympathizes with bees?”

3. (Canada, US, transitive)To say in an expression of sympathy.

   ““How much he slapped my sons—you should see their swollen faces, Panditji,” said Dukhi. […] “Poor children,” sympathized Pandit Lallaram.”

4. (Canada, US, intransitive)To have a common feeling, as of bodily pleasure or pain.

   “[…] the mind will sympathize so much with the anguish and debility of the body, that it will be […] too distracted to fix itself in meditation.”

5. (Canada, US, obsolete, transitive)To share (a feeling or experience).

   “And all that are assembled in this place, That by this sympathized one day’s error Have suffer’d wrong, go keep us company, And we shall make full satisfaction.”

6. (Canada, US, intransitive)To agree; to be in accord; to harmonize.

   “Henry V. The southern wind Doth play the trumpet to his purposes, And by his hollow whistling in the leaves Foretells a tempest and a blustering day. Henry IV. Then with the losers let it sympathize, For nothing can seem foul to those that win.”

   “It was the Winter wilde. While the Heav’n-born-childe, All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies: Nature in aw to him Had doff't her gawdy trim, With her great Maſter ſo to ſympathize: It was no ſeaſon then for her To wanton with the Sun her luſty Paramour.”

   “Green, for example, is a pleasing Colour, which may come from a blue and a yellow mix’d together, and by consequence blue and yellow are two Colours which sympathize:”

   “Then personal appearance sympathised with mental deterioration: he acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness […]”