consolation
/ˌkɒnsəˈleɪʃ(ə)n
/noun [mass noun]
1The comfort received by a person after a loss or disappointment: there was consolation in knowing that others were worse off...
- So would he attempt to persuade an individual who had always harmlessly derived comfort and consolation from his faith that his life was based on a falsehood?
- There is no nostalgia here, only loss and small consolation.
- She always had a word of consolation and comfort to all who had the pleasure of knowing her.
Synonyms
comfort, solace;
sympathy, compassion, pity, commiseration, fellow feeling;
relief, help, aid, support, moral support, cheer, encouragement, reassurance, fortification;
soothing, easement, succour, assuagement, alleviation
1.1 [count noun] A person or thing providing consolation: the Church was the main consolation in a short and hard life...
- One of the consolations - for gardeners - of the long, wet, dark winter evenings is to sit in front of a roaring fire with seed catalogues and plant lists, and dream of how the garden will look in the summer.
- For this, they remain personal heroes of mine since a close and intimate relationship seems to be one of the chief consolations of growing older, and I worry I lack the requisite skills, or have become stuck in my ways.
- Simply put, his wild imagination and inexhaustible creative energy might have been the only consolations for a life that seemed destined for meek destitution from the start.
1.2 (also consolation goal) [count noun] British (In sport) a goal scored at a point when it is no longer possible for the scoring team to win: two minutes from time Moore grabbed a consolation goal for the losers
Derivatives
consolatory
/ /kənˈsəʊlət(ə)ri / adjective ...- The Virgin Mary could be tolerated for her merciful, loving, consolatory virtues if only one didn't at the same time have to buy into her passivity and sexual repressiveness.
- They say it in a consolatory tone as if to say they wouldn't judge me if she doesn't.
- The effect was often consolatory, showing acceptance, or even transcendence in the face of death.
Origin
Late Middle English: via Old French from Latin consolatio(n-), from the verb consolari (see console1).