sympathize vs understand

sympathize

verb
  • To support, favour, have sympathy (with a political cause or movement, a side in a conflict / in an action). 

  • To agree; to be in accord; to harmonize. 

  • To have a common feeling, as of bodily pleasure or pain. 

  • To have, show or express sympathy; to be affected by feelings similar to those of another, in consequence of knowing the person to be thus affected. 

  • To say in an expression of sympathy. 

understand

verb
  • To stand underneath, to support. 

  • To believe, to think one grasps sufficiently despite potentially incomplete knowledge. 

  • To grasp a concept fully in one's mind, especially (of words, statements, art, etc.) to be aware of the meaning of and (of people) to be aware of the intent of. 

How often have the words sympathize and understand occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )