On “Compassion,” OED-Style

The irony in this one is rich. The original definition of compassion, which arrived on the scene in 1340, was:

"Suffering together with another, participation in suffering; fellow-feeling, sympathy."

And the secondary definition doesn't get much better:

"The feeling or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it; pity that inclines one to spare or to succour."

Tertiary?

"Sorrowful emotion, sorrow, grief."

And as an aside, the March 2002 OED added something I've only heard for maybe two years:

compassion fatigue n. orig. U.S. apathy or indifference towards the suffering of others or to charitable causes acting on their behalf, typically attributed to numbingly frequent appeals for assistance, esp. donations; (hence) a diminishing public response to frequent charitable appeal.

The verb compassion has simply meant to pity.

Maybe compassionate will be more helpful, as so far compassion should definitely not be used when referring to, say, carnivores.

Compassionate, the adverb, isn't much consolation.

"Affected with, characterized by, or expressing compassion; pitiful, sympathetic."

"Displaying sorrowful emotion; sorrowfully lamenting; or moving pity, piteous."

We get closer with:

"Granted out of compassion, without legal or other obligation; of or pertaining to allowances, leave, etc., so granted."

With that one, you can say for instance that you don't have a legal obligation to not take calves from their mothers and chain them to crates, but you're going to not do that out of compassion, albeit a creative application of the word.

Compassionate the verb show up as:

"To regard or treat with compassion; to pity, commiserate (a person, or his distress, etc.)."

Here's an example:

1837 H. MARTINEAU Soc. Amer. III. 11 Countries whose political servitude the Americans justly compassionate.

Here's what we appear to have lost: commiserating, it's gone. In the 21st century compassionate isn't expressing sympathy with, but perhaps sympathy for, and even that is questionable as if you feel genuinely terrible about the plight of animals used for food, you don't go out of your way to create a system that still uses them for food. No. You stop using them for food.

Unless of course you have an ulterior motive, such as "My ability to continue to eat them shall not be compromised."

And then you realize that all of the talk of "compassionate" is a marketing ploy and a way to rationalize continuing to use animals for your own gain.