empathy

English

Etymology

A twentieth-century borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια (empátheia, literally “passion”) (formed from ἐν (en, “in, at”) + πάθος (páthos, “feeling”)), coined by Edward Bradford Titchener in 1909 to translate German Einfühlungsvermögen. The modern word in Greek εμπάθεια (empátheia) has an opposite meaning denoting strong negative feelings and prejudice against someone.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛmpəθi/

Noun

empathy (countable and uncountable, plural empathies)

1. Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person.

   She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too.

2. Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding.
3. (parapsychology, science fiction) A paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions.
4. (obsolete slang) MDMA.

   Synonym: ecstasy

Usage notes

Used similarly to sympathy, interchangeably in looser usage. In stricter usage, empathy is stronger and more intimate, meaning that the subject understands and shares an emotion with the object—as in “I feel your pain”—while sympathy is weaker and more distant—concern, but not shared emotion: “I care for you”.

Translations

intellectual identification with another person

• Bulgarian: съпричастие n (sǎpričastie)
• Catalan: empatia (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 移情 (zh) (yíqíng), 同感 (zh) (tónggǎn)

• Czech: empatie (cs) f
• Dutch: inlevingsvermogen n, empathie (nl) f
• Esperanto: empatio
• Finnish: empatia (fi)
• French: empathie (fr) f
• German: Empathie (de) f
• Greek: ενσυναίσθηση (el) f (ensynaísthisi)
• Hebrew: אֶמְפַּתְיָה (he) m (empatiá)
• Hungarian: empátia (hu), beleérzés, beleérző képesség
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: empatia (it) f
• Maori: ngākau aroha
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: empati (no) m

  Nynorsk: empati m

• Polish: empatia (pl)
• Portuguese: empatia (pt) f
• Romanian: empatie (ro) f
• Russian: сочу́вствие (ru) n (sočúvstvije)
• Scottish Gaelic: co-fhaireachdainn m, iochd m
• Spanish: empatía (es) f
• Swedish: empati (sv) c
• Turkish: empati (tr)
• Vietnamese: thấu cảm (vi)

capacity to understand another person's point of view

• Catalan: empatia (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 移情 (zh) (yíqíng), 同感 (zh) (tónggǎn)

• Danish: empati (da)
• German: Einfühlungsvermögen (de) n
• Greek: κατανόηση (el) f (katanóisi), συμπάθεια (el) f (sympátheia)
• Icelandic: hluttekning (is) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: empatia (it) f
• Polish: empatia (pl) f
• Portuguese: empatia (pt) f
• Romanian: empatie (ro) f
• Russian: сочу́вствие (ru) n (sočúvstvije), сопережива́ние (ru) n (sopereživánije), эмпа́тия (ru) f (empátija)
• Scottish Gaelic: co-fhaireachdainn m, iochd m
• Swedish: empati (sv) c
• Vietnamese: cộng cảm

See also

• telepathy
• biopathy
• cyberpathy
• technopathy
• sympathy

Further reading

• empathy on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “empathy”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• empathy in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• “empathy”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.