vbl. sb. [See FELLOW sb. 13; a rendering of L. compassio, Gr. ουμπάθεια SYMPATHY.]
1. Participation in the feelings of others; sympathy.
1613. R. C., Table Alph. (ed. 3). Compassion, pittie, fellow-feeling.
1623. Rowlandson, God’s Bless., 62. Men of other callings should have a fellow-feeling of those miseries.
1690. Earl Melfort, in Ellis’ Orig. Lett., Ser. II. No. 384, IV. 190. There is not such a thing as fellow-feeling (the presbyterian word).
a. 1716. Blackall, Wks. (1723), I. 70. Mercy, properly speaking, is an Affection of the Mind … ’tis a fellow-feeling of another’s Sufferings.
1818. Hazlitt, Eng. Poets, ii. (1870), 52. Inanimate objects … have a fellow-feeling in the interest of the story.
1857. W. Collins, Dead Secret, II. i. (1861), 37. I am a Sacrifice in my own proper person, and have a fellow-feeling for others who are like me.
2. Sense of community of interest.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull, I. x. Even your milk woman and your nursery maid have a fellow-feeling.
1755. Johnson, Fellow-feeling, combination, joint interest; commonly in an ill sense. [This is no longer correct.]
1809. Byron, Bards & Rev., xiv. A fellow-feeling makes us wond’rous kind.
