How Do You Use the Word ‘Commiserate?’

"Hi Mignon. This is Kate from Colorado, and my friend Anna from Louisiana and I were discussing the word 'commiserate' the other day, and we had both used it in the context of really experiencing the same situation or feeling the pain of somebody that expressed a difficult situation. So if you were commiserating about work it was that we were sharing in that sorrow or difficulty together. But we also recognize that the dictionary definition simply says to sympathize or to empathize or have pity, and that gives the impression of being outside of the situation and expressing sympathy or sorrow for what they're experiencing. So are we using it incorrectly, and is there a different word that we should be using? Because you could simply say, 'Oh, I relate to you,' but that doesn't have the same kind connotation. For me, 'commiserate' has always had that connotation of sharing it with that person, and I think that he's in the context of like, 'Oh yeah we sat, we drink beer, and commiserated about the week,' but I don't know that we're using it correctly, so I would love to hear your input on that. Thanks so much. Love the show. Bye."

Thanks for the question, Kate. So do you commiserate about an experience? Do you commiserate someone? Do you commiserate with someone? 

The answer is all of the above. 

Let’s start at the beginning. 

“Commiserate” means to feel pity or compassion about another person’s misfortune. It comes from the Latin “commiserati,” meaning "to pity or bewail." That word in turn is a mashup of “com,” meaning "together or in combination," and “miser,” meaning "unhappy, wretched, or in distress."

Other words that come from this root include “miserable,” meaning "wretchedly unhappy," and “misery,” meaning "a state of great sorrow, misfortune, or distress."

Interestingly enough, another related word is “miser,” meaning a covetous person who hoards their money. This meaning seems to rely on a belief that pinching pennies and refusing to share your wealth will lead to unhappiness. 

Charles Dickens’ Ebeneezer Scrooge is a fictional example of this belief. A real-life example is Hetty Green, a 19th-century American financier known as “the witch of Wall Street.” Although Green was a multi-millionaire, she wore ragged clothes, went to charity clinics instead of regular doctors, and supposedly refused to treat her son’s leg when it was injured, leading to its eventual amputation.

I think we can guess that Hetty was, indeed, pretty unhappy.

But back to our original question: how...

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