mercy

1 kind, gentle, or compassionate treatment especially towards someone who is undeserving of it always show your enemies mercy, because it makes you a better person Synonyms charity, clemency, forbearance, lenience, leniency, lenity, mercifulness, quarter Related Words humanitarianism, philanthropy; empathy, pity, sympathy, understanding; commiseration, favor, grace; benevolence, care, compassion, gentleness, goodness, goodwill, humaneness, kindliness, kindness, meekness, mildness, niceness, softness, tenderness; altruism, generosity, magnanimity, nobility; affection, devotion, love, worship Near Antonyms hard-heartedness, mercilessness, pitilessness, ruthlessness, uncharitableness; reprisal, requital, retaliation, retribution, revenge, vengeance; venom, vindictiveness, virulence, vitriol; atrocity, barbarity, brutality, cruelty, sadism, savageness, savagery, truculence, viciousness, violence, wantonness; castigation, chastisement, discipline, punishment, scolding; abhorrence, abomination, detestation, execration, hate, hatred, loathing; cattiness, malevolence, malice, maliciousness, malignancy, malignity, meanness, nastiness, spite, spitefulness, spleen; animosity, antagonism, antipathy, bitterness, enmity, gall, grudge, hostility, jealousy, pique, resentment; bile, jaundice, rancor; hatefulness, invidiousness; coarseness, hardness, harshness, roughness

2 an act of kind assistance did a mercy for the stranded motorist and was richly rewarded Synonyms benevolence, boon, courtesy, grace, indulgence, kindness, favor, service, turnRelated Words dispensation, waiver; advantage, benefit, blessing, godsend, manna; liberty, license (or licence), privilegeNear Antonyms hindrance, hurdle, impediment, interference, obstacle

3 the capacity for feeling for another's unhappiness or misfortune a woman of such mercy that she's been known to cry over dead rodents Synonyms bigheartedness, charity, commiseration, compassion, feeling, good-heartedness, humanity, kindheartedness, kindliness, kindness, largeheartedness, heart, pity, ruth, softheartedness, sympathy, warmheartednessRelated Words feelings, responsiveness, sensibility, sensitivity; affection, love, regard; affinity, empathy, rapport; altruism, benevolence, benignancy, benignity, generosity, goodwill, humaneness, humanism, humanitarianism, philanthropyNear Antonyms callousness, coldness, disinterest, indifference, unconcern; cruelty, harshness; animosity, antipathy, dislike, hatred, hostilityAntonyms coldheartedness, hard-heartedness, inhumanity, inhumanness, mercilessness, pitilessness