Wiktionary

empathy

English

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Etymology

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A twentieth-century borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια (empátheia, literally “passion”) (formed from ἐν (en, “in, at”) + πάθος (páthos, “feeling”)), equivalent to em- +‎ -pathy, 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

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Noun

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empathy (countable and uncountable, plural empathies)

  1. Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person.
    Synonym: fellow feeling
    She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too.
    • 2022 January 28, Em Beihold, Nick Lopez, Dru DeCaro, “Numb Little Bug”, in Egg in the Backseat‎[1], performed by Em Beihold:
      Like your body's in the room but you're not really there / Like you have empathy inside but you don't really care / Like you're fresh outta love but it's been in the air / Am I past repair?
    • 2025 March 5, Zachary B. Wolf, “Elon Musk wants to save Western civilization from empathy”, in CNN‎[2], archived from the original on 26 March 2025:
      While Musk said he believes in empathy and that “you should care about other people,” he also thinks it’s destroying society.
  2. The 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

Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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Further reading

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