Empathy definition
Empathy is a distinctly human capability.
They have empathy for the evacuees who were displaced by the flood.
An example of empathy is feeling the same amount of excitment as a friend, when they tell you they're getting married.
She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too.
Other Word Forms
Noun
Origin of empathy
- en– –pathy (translation of German Einfühlung)
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- A twentieth-century borrowing of Ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια (empatheia, literally “passion”) (formed from ἐν (en-, “in, at”) + πάθος (pathos, “feeling”)), coined by Edward Bradford Titchener to translate German Einfühlung. The modern Greek word εμπάθεια (empátheia) has an opposite meaning denoting strong negative feelings and prejudice against someone.
From Wiktionary