miser-

To feel or to express sympathy, pity, or compassion.

1. A feeling of sympathy and sorrow for the misfortunes, or miseries, of others.
2. An expression of sympathy with another's grief.

Indeed, wretched is the man whose fame makes his misfortunes famous.

1. Originally, a wretched person.
2. A stingy person.
3. From Latin miser, "wretched, miserable, pitiable"; so, this word is not derived from the Greek miso- (hate) element despite the similarity in form.

1. Characterized by physical misery.
2. Contemptibly small in amount.
3. Deserving or inciting pity: "We have too many miserable victims of the Iraq war."
4. Of very poor quality or condition.
5. Causing or accompanied by discomfort, unpleasantness, or unhappiness.
6. Inadequate, often insultingly or embarrassingly inadequate, in quantity or quality.

1. A condition characterized by physical misery: "We have suffered the miserableness of a freezing spring."
2. Characterized by being very unhappy; that is, depressed and with miserableness.
3. The state or quality of being miserable.

1. In misery, wretchedness, or unhappiness.
2. Characterized by physical misery: "She groaned miserably and trembled with anger because she was too poor to by the medication she needed."
3. A reference to someone having a wretched character or quality; contemptible: "He has failed miserably as a father."

Compassion; pity; mercy.

A thin-bladed dagger; so called because in the Middle Ages, it was used to give the death stroke, or "mercy" stroke, to a fallen adversary.

Compassion takes care of sufferings, it does not ask for their cause.

Motto of German Emperor Rupprecht of Palatinate (1400-1410).

A description of an amount that is extremely small.

1. A reference to people or behavior which is characterized by or indicative of lack of generosity.
2. A description of someone who is greedy for money and unwilling to share it or to spend it.
3. A reference to something which is contemptibly insufficient or inadequate.
4. Relating to or characteristic of a miser; avaricious or penurious.

Any disease associated with deprivation and neglect.

No stranger to misfortune myself, I learn to relieve the sufferings of others.

One rationale for helping people in distress, from Virgil's Aeneid. With these words, Dido, Queen of Carthage, greeted Aeneas and his companions, who were in exile.