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 Einfühlung. The modern word in Greek εμπάθεια (empátheia) has an opposite meaning denoting strong negative feelings and prejudice against someone.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛmpəθi/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

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” or "I feel sorry for you."

Derived terms

• empath

Translations

intellectual identification with another person

• Arabic: تَعَاطُف m (taʕāṭuf)
• Belarusian: спачува́нне n (spačuvánnje), суперажыва́нне n (supjeražyvánnje), эмпа́тыя f (empátyja)
• Bulgarian: съприча́стие n (sǎpričástie), съчу́вствие (bg) n (sǎčúvstvie), емпа́тия f (empátija)
• Catalan: empatia (ca) f
• Chinese:

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

• Czech: empatie (cs) f
• Dutch: inlevingsvermogen (nl) n, empathie (nl) f
• Esperanto: empatio
• Finnish: empatia (fi)
• French: empathie (fr) f
• Georgian: ემპათია (emṗatia)
• German: Empathie (de) f
• Greek: ενσυναίσθηση (el) f (ensynaísthisi)
• Hebrew: אֶמְפַּתְיָה (he) f (empátya)
• Hindi: सहानुभूति (hi) f (sahānubhūti), तदनुभूति f (tadnubhūti)
• Hungarian: empátia (hu), beleérzés, beleérző képesség
• Indonesian: empati (id)
• Italian: empatia (it) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Japanese: 共感 (ja) (きょうかん, kyōkan)
• Korean: 공감(共感) (gonggam)
• Macedonian: емпатија f (empatija)
• Malayalam: സഹാനുഭൂതി (sahānubhūti)
• Maori: ngākau aroha
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: empati (no) m

  Nynorsk: empati m

• Persian: همدلی (fa) (hamdeli)
• Polish: empatia (pl) f
• Portuguese: empatia (pt) f
• Romanian: empatie (ro) f
• Russian: сочу́вствие (ru) n (sočúvstvije), эмпа́тия (ru) f (empátija), сопережива́ние (ru) n (sopereživánije)
• Scottish Gaelic: co-fhaireachdainn m, iochd m
• Slovak: empatia f, vcítenie n
• Spanish: empatía (es) f
• Swedish: empati (sv) c
• Turkish: empati (tr)
• Ukrainian: співчуття́ n (spivčuttjá), емпа́тія f (empátija), співпережива́ння n (spivperežyvánnja)
• 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, Empathie (de) f
• Greek: κατανόηση (el) f (katanóisi), συμπάθεια (el) f (sympátheia)
• Icelandic: hluttekning (is) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: empatia (it) f
• Malayalam: സഹാനുഭൂതി (sahānubhūti)
• 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
• Spanish: empatía (es) f
• Swedish: empati (sv) c
• Vietnamese: cộng cảm

See also

• sympathy
• telepathy
• technopathy

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.