compersion

Examples of compersion in a sentence

• In Kerista, on the other hand, the relationship that every man had with the other men and that every woman had with the other women elicited what they called "compersion" rather than jealousy.1992, Ayala Malach Pines, “Romantic Jealousy in Open Relationships”, in Romantic Jealousy: Causes, Symptoms, Cures, New York, N.Y.; London...
• Some polyamorous people experience compersion, which means feeling joy that one’s partner is sharing closeness with another person[…]. [M.2006, Geri Weitzman, “Therapy with Clients who are Bisexual and Polyamorous”, in Ronald C. Fox, editor, Affirmative Psychotherapy with...
• One last quality that cannot go unmentioned in any discussion of open relationships is compersion, a concept that may be new to many readers.2008, Tristan Taormino, “What Makes an Open Relationship Work?”, in Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships, San...

Origin of compersion

Coined in the early 1990s by a group of members of the Kerista Commune, a polyamorous group based in San Francisco, California, U.S.A., in existence between 1956 and 1991, apparently randomly using an alphabet board (similar to a Ouija board), with -ion (suffix forming nouns). The hypothesis that the word is derived from French compère (“partner”) + English -sion (a variant of -tion (suffix forming nouns)), based on an earlier use of French compérage by the French anthropologist and ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009) to denote the practice of brothers-in-law sharing wives observed among Tupi people of the Brazilian Amazon, is less plausible: a website run by former members of the community states that neither the word compérage nor Lévi-Strauss’s work was known to them at the time, and the formation of the word in this way does not correspond to any known morphological process.

Words formed from compersion

• compersionism
• compersionist
• compersive

Words that rhyme with compersion

• conversion
• inversion
• assertion
• excursion
• subversion
• ambiversion
• compursion
• desertion

Questions about compersion

What does compersion mean?

Compersion means vicarious joy associated with seeing one's partner have a joyful romantic or sexual relationship with another person.

How do you use compersion in a sentence?

In Kerista, on the other hand, the relationship that every man had with the other men and that every woman had with the other women elicited what they called "compersion" rather than jealousy.

What part of speech is compersion?

Compersion is a noun.

How do you pronounce compersion?

Compersion is pronounced /kəmˈpɜːʒn̩/ (UK).