đồng bệnh

Đồng bệnh tương liên, những người cùng hoàn cảnh thường dễ cảm thông với nhau.

Definition

1. Noun:
   • Fellow sufferer; person with the same illness: Refers to a person who shares an identical disease or medical condition with another. This is the literal meaning.
   • Person in the same predicament; kindred spirit: Describes someone who is in an identical difficult, unfortunate, or similar situation, creating a bond of shared experience.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • Họ trở thành bạn thân vì là đồng bệnh, cùng chiến đấu với căn bệnh hiểm nghèo. (They became close friends as fellow sufferers, fighting the same severe illness together.)
  • Những người thất nghiệp thường cảm thấy đồng bệnh với nhau. (Unemployed people often feel like kindred spirits with each other.)

Advanced Usage

• The term is often used metaphorically more than literally. It emphasizes empathy, mutual understanding, and shared fate arising from common hardship.
• It can be used to form a compound concept: "đồng bệnh tương liên" (sometimes shortened from the idiom "đồng bệnh tương liên, đồng chung tương cứu"). This means "fellow sufferers sympathize with each other" or "misery loves company," highlighting how shared struggles create natural affinity and mutual support.

Variants and Related Words

• Đồng cảnh (n): A person in the same situation or circumstances.
• Đồng chí (n): Comrade; originally meaning "shared will," now commonly used for a fellow party member.
• Bệnh (n): Illness, disease, or (figuratively) a flaw, weakness, or unhealthy obsession.

Synonyms

• Fellow sufferer
• Kindred spirit
• Person in the same boat

Related Idioms

• Đồng bệnh tương liên: Fellow sufferers sympathize with each other; misery loves company.
  • Sau trận lũ, tinh thần đồng bệnh tương liên giúp dân làng vượt qua khó khăn. (After the flood, the spirit of fellow sufferers sympathizing with each other helped the villagers overcome hardship.)