empathy means identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, empathy ranks #1,800 of 14,361 for Most Ingenious Words, #3,285 of 14,297 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #7,152 of 14,445 for Most Beautiful Words, #7,170 of 14,448 for Most Incisive Words.
empathy is pronounced /ˈɛmpəθi/.
Why “empathy” is a great word
The capacity to understand and share the feelings, thoughts, or point of view of another person. From Ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια (empátheia), from ἐν (en, "in") + πάθος (páthos, "feeling, suffering"), coined in 1909 by Edward Bradford Titchener to translate German Einfühlung. Unlike "sympathy" (which looks from a distance with pity) or "apathy" (which turns away with indifference), empathy is the quiet migration of the self into another's skin. It is the breath caught in the throat when a friend recalls a loss, the warmth that rises in the chest at a child's hesitant pride, the weight of silence shared between two people who need not speak to be understood—a brief, fragile bridge built across the solitude of being.
Etymology
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.
noun
- 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.”
- The capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding.
- A paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions.
- MDMA.
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- compassion 89% match — Deep awareness of the suffering of others that people have to the point of them being motivated to relieve such states. vs empathy →
- empath 88% match — Someone with an extraordinarily high capability of sensing the emotions of others.; Someone who does so through psychological talent or training, thus having an unusually good level of empathy. vs empathy →
- commiseration 86% match — The act of commiserating; sorrow for the hardships or afflictions of another; pity; compassion. vs empathy →
- compassionate 86% match — Having, feeling or showing compassion (to or toward someone). vs empathy →
- fellowfeel 86% match — To empathize or sympathize with. vs empathy →
- telepathy 85% match — The capability to communicate directly by psychic means; the sympathetic affection of one mind by the thoughts, feelings, or emotions of another at a distance, without communication through the ordinary channels of sensation. vs empathy →
- commiserate 85% match — Commiserating, pitying, lamentful. vs empathy →
- pathos 85% match — The quality or property of anything which touches the feelings or excites emotions and passions, especially that which awakens tender emotions, such as pity, sorrow, and the like; contagious warmth of feeling, action, or expression; pathetic quality. vs empathy →