condolence
noun
Simple meaning
An expression of comfort, support, or sympathy offered to the family and friends of somebody who has died.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhndohluhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kənˈdoʊləns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
countableusually in the plural
An expression of comfort, support, or sympathy offered to the family and friends of somebody who has died.
An expression of sympathy with another's grief
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: An expression of comfort, support, or sympathy offered to the family and friends of somebody who has died.
Used this way, condolence is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It turns up most in family or home contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Kind and considerate
- Usage feel
- Warm and expressive
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use condolence
- “They sent their condolences.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.