the.com/consolation
The prize you get for losing, so everyone can stop watching you cry.
means Comfort or solace offered to someone after a loss or disappointment, meant to ease the sting.
from From Latin consolari, 'to console' — com- (thoroughly) plus solari (to comfort, soothe), the same root that gives us 'solace.' It traveled through Old French consolation into English by the 1300s, carrying the same job the whole way: dressing up disappointment in kinder words.
- etymology
- Latin consolari, to offer solace, share the burden
- consolation prize
- Invented to soften losers, not reward winners
- psychology
- Comfort works best when it skips the silver linings
- irony
- Often remembered longer than the thing you lost