Fellow feeling
n.kind, thoughtfulwarm
What it means
Shared sympathy and understanding for another person's experience.
Reach for it when naming humane identification rather than detached concern
Hard years had given the neighbors genuine fellow feeling.
Choose between these
7- everyday
concern for another's difficulty is the main response
not when Sympathy can remain one-sided and need not arise from common experience.
- warm
suffering prompts a wish to help
not when Compassion can flow across difference without fellow identification.
- warm
similarity creates a natural connection
not when Kinship may be felt without understanding the person's hardship.
- professional
understanding another person's perspective is central
not when Empathy does not always include affection or shared identity.
- professional
easy mutual understanding develops in conversation
not when Rapport may be pleasant but shallow.
- professional
shared interests lead to practical support
not when Solidarity is public and political more often than intimate.
- literary
communion
profound shared feeling deserves an elevated term
not when Communion can carry religious meaning.
Said against
3- indifference
- alienation
- callousness
It naturally appears in
3- sense of fellow feeling
The shared task created a sense of fellow feeling among the crews.
- fellow feeling with
Her years abroad gave her fellow feeling with newly arrived students.
- genuine fellow feeling
Genuine fellow feeling turned polite concern into practical help.
Where this comes from
- wiktionary, English noun phrase sense: sympathy with another's feelings opens in a new tab · retrieved 2026-07-26
The definition and the example on this page are written here. The dictionaries above ground which meaning is being described, not the wording.