sonder

ˈsɒndərnoun

What does sonder mean?

The realization that every stranger has a life as full and complicated as your own.

Sonder, six ways

PlainThe realization that every stranger has a life as full and complicated as your own.
ADHDEvery stranger has a whole life. Full plot. You just noticed.
Gen ZThe moment you clock that every stranger walking past has a life as complicated as yours.
MetaphorA thousand lit windows at night, each with a story you will never read.
FormalThe sudden awareness that each passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as one’s own.
Like I’m 5Everybody you see has their own days and their own feelings, even the people you don’t know. Thinking about that is sonder.

How to pronounce sonder

SON-der/ˈsɒndər/

Sonder in a sentence

Stuck in traffic, she felt a wave of sonder.
Watching lit windows from the train, she felt sonder.
Sonder is often cited as a word for empathy at scale.

Synonyms for sonder

empathyFeeling with someone, not just knowing they have a life.
perspectiveSeeing things from elsewhere.

Where sonder comes from

Coined in 2012 by John Koenig for The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, after the German sonder, special, and the French sonder, to probe.

Good to know

It isn’t in most standard dictionaries yet, but people use it, usually about strangers in a crowd.

Sonder meaning, on a Gloss card: The realization that every stranger has a life as full and complicated as your own.

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Words like sonder

limerence · nostalgia · sonorous · somnolent · capricious · idyllic · All 110 words

In: Words for feelings · Words with a story