What a pity if you didn't pick B. Though we now associate the word "miser" with someone who is greedy, the ancient Romans connected the word with anyone who was wretched or miserable. (As Ebenezer Scrooge proved in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, pursuing and hoarding money can make a miser miserable.) Sympathetic Latin speakers used "miser" to form the Latin verb "miserari," which means "to pity." "Miserari" gave rise to another Latin verb, "commiserari," which literally means "to be wretched with." English speakers used "commiserari" as the model for "commiserate," which has been used for sharing pain or sorrow for about 400 years.