Empathy definition
The ability to identify with or understand another's situation or feelings.
Empathy is a distinctly human capability.
noun
The ability to identify with or understand the perspective, experiences, or motivations of another individual and to comprehend and share another individual's emotional state.
noun
The attribution of one's own feelings to an object.
They have empathy for the evacuees who were displaced by the flood.
noun
The projection of one's own personality into the personality of another in order to understand the person better; ability to share in another's emotions, thoughts, or feelings.
noun
The projection of one's own personality into an object, with the attribution to the object of one's own emotions, responses, etc.
noun
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Empathy is defined as the ability to understand the thoughts feelings or emotions of someone else.
An example of empathy is feeling the same amount of excitment as a friend, when they tell you they're getting married.
noun
Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding.
She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too.
noun
The intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person.
noun
(parapsychology, science fiction) A paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun
Singular:
empathy
Plural:
empathiesOrigin 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