CONSOLATORY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does consolatory mean? 

• CONSOLATORY (adjective)
  The adjective CONSOLATORY has 1 sense:

1. affording comfort or solace

  Familiarity information: CONSOLATORY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONSOLATORY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Affording comfort or solace

Synonyms:

comforting; consolatory; consoling

Similar:

reassuring (restoring confidence and relieving anxiety)

Derivation:

console (give moral or emotional strength to)

 Context examples 

This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I endeavoured to stifle it—I endeavoured to be firm.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

She could neither wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

They had been long so arranged in the indulgence of her secret meditations, and nothing was more consolatory to her than to find her aunt using the same language: I cannot but say I much regret your being from home at this distressing time, so very trying to my spirits.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines—election, predestination, reprobation—were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Everything was a friend, or bore her thoughts to a friend; and though there had been sometimes much of suffering to her; though her motives had often been misunderstood, her feelings disregarded, and her comprehension undervalued; though she had known the pains of tyranny, of ridicule, and neglect, yet almost every recurrence of either had led to something consolatory: her aunt Bertram had spoken for her, or Miss Lee had been encouraging, or, what was yet more frequent or more dear, Edmund had been her champion and her friend: he had supported her cause or explained her meaning, he had told her not to cry, or had given her some proof of affection which made her tears delightful; and the whole was now so blended together, so harmonised by distance, that every former affliction had its charm.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)