Sym`pa*thet"ic (?), a.
[See Sympathy, and cf. Pathetic.]
1. Inclined to sympathy;
sympathizing.
Far wiser he, whose sympathetic mind
Exults in all the good of all mankind.
Goldsmith. 2.
Produced by, or expressive of, sympathy.
Ope the sacred source of sympathetic
tears.
Gray.
3. (Physiol.) (a) Produced by sympathy; -- applied particularly to symptoms or affections. See Sympathy. (b) Of or relating to the sympathetic nervous system or some of its branches; produced by stimulation on the sympathetic nervious system or some part of
it; as, the
sympathetic saliva, a modified form of saliva, produced from some of the salivary glands by stimulation of a sympathetic nerve fiber.
Sympathetic ink.
(Chem.) See under
Ink. -- Sympathetic nerve
(Anat.), any nerve
of the sympathetic system; especially, the axial chain of ganglions and nerves belonging to the sympathetic system. -- Sympathetic powder
(Alchemy), a kind of powder long supposed to be able to cure a wound if applied to the weapon
that inflicted it, or even to a portion of
the bloody clothes. Dunglison. -- Sympathetic sounds (Physics), sounds produced from solid bodies by means of vibrations which have been communicated to them from some other sounding body, by means of the
air or an
intervening solid. -- Sympathetic system
(Anat.), a system of nerves and nerve ganglions connected with the alimentary canal, the vascular system, and the glandular organs of most vertebrates, and controlling
more or less their actions. The axial part of the system and its principal ganglions and nerves are situated in the body cavity and form a chain
of ganglions on each side of
the vertebral column connected with numerous other ganglions and nerve plexuses.
Hear it pronounced