empathy

EnglishEdit

EtymologyEdit

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.

PronunciationEdit

IPA^(key): /ˈɛmpəθi/
Audio (Southern England) (file)

NounEdit

empathy (countable and uncountable, plural empathies)

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

Usage notesEdit

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 termsEdit

TranslationsEdit

intellectual identification with another person

Arabic: تَعَاطُف‎ m (taʿāṭuf)
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
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
Italian: empatia (it) f
Malayalam: സഹാനുഭൂതി (sahānubhūti)
Maori: ngākau aroha
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