different between sympathizer vs sympathiser

English

Alternative forms

• sympathiser

Etymology

sympathize +? -er

Noun

sympathizer (plural sympathizers)

1. (often derogatory) A person who sympathizes (with a political cause, a side in a conflict, etc.); a supporter.
   • 1869, Sarah Hopkins Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, Auburn, NY: W.J. Moses, p. 102,^[1]

     […] she exposed herself to the fury of the sympathizers with slavery, without fear, and suffered their blows without flinching.

   • 1934, George Orwell, Burmese Days, London: Victor Gollancz, 1935, Chapter 13,^[2]

     ‘ […] And I tell you that the slightest suspicion of my loyalty could be ruin for me, ruin! If it were ever breathed that I were even a sympathiser with this rebellion, there iss an end of me.’

   • 2013, Nadeem Aslam, The Blind Man’s Garden, London: Faber & Faber, Chapter 4,^[3]

     The Ardent Spirit pupils now belong to him alone and through them he’ll set his plans in motion, moulding them to be warrior saints, brilliant in deceit against the West and its sympathisers here at home.

2. (now rare) A person who has, shows or expresses sympathy (with another person or people); a person who enters into the feelings of another.
   • 1655, George Hutcheson, A Brief Exposition on the XII Small Prophets, London: Ralph Smith, Prophecy of Amos, p. 157,^[4]

     […] it is a sad case when the truly godly, who are cordial sympathizers, and earnest intercessours in the straits of a Nation, are stricken dumb in a day of calamity […]

   • 1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, London: for the author, Volume 7, Letter 60, p. 220,^[5]

     […] I am a sympathizer in every part of thy distress, except (and yet it is cruel to say it) in That which arises from thy guilt.

   • 1855, Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South, Chapter 41,^[6]

     Not a mood of his but what found a ready sympathiser in Margaret; not a wish of his that she did not strive to forecast, and to fulfil.

Derived terms

• comsymp

Translations

See also

• fellow traveller

English

Etymology

sympathise +? -er

Noun

sympathiser (plural sympathisers)

1. Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of sympathizer.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s??.pa.ti.ze/

Verb

sympathiser

1. to hit it off

Conjugation

Further reading

• “sympathiser” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).