Word.ws English Dictionary

compassion fatigue

compassion fatigue noun: the exhaustion of the capacity to react with sympathy to another's misfortune owing to one's overexposure to their previous misfortunes.

Noun

compassion fatigue (usually uncountable, plural compassion fatigues)

  1. (usually) The exhaustion of the capacity to react with sympathy to another's misfortune owing to one's overexposure to their previous misfortunes.
    • But we must beware of the creeping "compassion fatigues,” and we must fight to counter the tendency.1992, The Second Annual Refugee Day: October 30, 1991, Office of the U. S. Coordinator for Refugee Affairs, page 34
    • Events come to be significant as instances above all of something that can be named: generation gaps, compassion fatigues, capitalist greed, welfare cheating, road rage, and so on.1997, Kenneth R. Minogue, The Silencing of Society: The True Cost of the Lust for News, page 28

Examples of compassion fatigue in a sentence

  • Recently, researchers have focused on another disturbing consequence of negative news—compassion fatigue.2005, Karen S. Johnson-Cartee, News Narratives and News Framing: Constructing Political Reality, page 298:
  • When people talk about “compassion fatigue” it means having difficulty tending to other peoples' needs.2013, Katherine Tapley-Milton, Devotions With Your Cat: For Those Who are Struggling, page 60:
  • • Personal variables: perfectionism and overinvolvement with patients, compassion fatigues, burnout […] .2014, Karen Saucier Lundy, Sharyn Janes, Community Health Nursing, page 1113, In the nursing profession, the following stressors can affect...

Forms of compassion fatigue

pluralcompassion fatigues

Origin of compassion fatigue

From compassion + fatigue.

Questions about compassion fatigue

What does compassion fatigue mean?
Compassion fatigue means the exhaustion of the capacity to react with sympathy to another's misfortune owing to one's overexposure to their previous misfortunes.
How do you use compassion fatigue in a sentence?
Recently, researchers have focused on another disturbing consequence of negative news—compassion fatigue.
What part of speech is compassion fatigue?
Compassion fatigue is a noun.
What is the plural of compassion fatigue?
The plural of compassion fatigue is compassion fatigues.

Words near compassion fatigue in the dictionary

  1. compasseth
  2. compassing
  3. compassing out
  4. compassings
  5. compassion
  6. compassion fatigue
  7. compassion fatigues
  8. compassionable
  9. compassionate
  10. compassionate conservatism
  11. compassionate conservativism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: compassion fatigue (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “compassion fatigue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/compassion_fatigue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.