Sympathische

Sympathische is an inflected form of the German adjective sympathisch, meaning likable or pleasant. It is not a separate word with its own meaning, but a grammatical ending used in attributive position to describe nouns. The form appears in various gender and number contexts depending on the article and case.

In German, adjectives change their endings to reflect gender, number, and case. Sympathische occurs mainly in feminine singular nominative or accusative after definite or indefinite determiners (die sympathische Frau, eine sympathische Frau). It also appears in neuter singular nominative or accusative after the definite article (das sympathische Kind). In the plural, bare (undetermined) forms can produce sympathische before nouns (sympathische Menschen), while after a definite article the ending changes to -en (die sympathischen Menschen).

Common usage examples include: Die sympathische Lehrerin begrüßte die Klasse. Eine sympathische Person half mir. Das sympathische Lächeln des Mannes verbreitete gute Stimmung. In each case, sympathische agrees with the noun’s gender, number, and case, illustrating the typical attributive adjective pattern in German.

Etymology and related terms: sympathisch derives from the noun Sympathie, itself from Greek and French origins related to feeling of harmony or affinity. The adjective is closely related to the noun Sympathie; the latter refers to the sense of affinity, while sympathisch describes a person or behavior as having that quality.