Sympathise or sympathize?
In American English write sympathize; in British and Commonwealth English, sympathise. sympathise is a verb meaning “Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of sympathize”; sympathize is a verb meaning “To have, show or express sympathy; to be affected by feelings similar to those…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) sympathize is about 2.2 times as common as sympathise.
What is the difference between sympathise and sympathize?
| sympathise | sympathize | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | verb |
| Meaning | CanadaUSTo 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; to feel… CanadaUSTo support, favour, have sympathy (with a political cause or movement, a side in a conflict / in an action) | |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Forms | sympathises, sympathising, sympathised | sympathizes, sympathizing, sympathized |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | not recorded |
| Region | UK | Canada, US |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words | 1.1 times per million words |
Sources: sympathise and sympathize in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of sympathise and sympathize
sympathize
- 1
CanadaUSTo 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; to feel for
- 2
CanadaUSTo support, favour, have sympathy (with a political cause or movement, a side in a conflict / in an action)
- 3
CanadaUSTo say in an expression of sympathy
- 4
CanadaUSTo have a common feeling, as of bodily pleasure or pain
- 5
CanadaUSTo agree; to be in accord; to harmonize
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, sympathise or sympathize?
sympathise appears about once in every 2 million words; sympathize 1.1 times per million words.
sympathise about once in every 2 million wordssympathize 1.1 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search sympathise vs sympathize?
“sympathise vs sympathize” is searched about 10 times a month on Google (Bing reports no separate figure) in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“sympathize vs sympathise”, “sympathise or sympathize”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.