empathy Synonyms & Antonyms

Empathy in a Sentence

She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too.

Lead by example and demonstrate the power of empathy and compassion.

There's no love in this character, no hidden empathy or tenderness that surfaces late in the story.

A little politeness, respect and empathy go a long way toward making our online experiences enjoyable and fulfilling.

Seen from the protagonists' worldview, the film becomes an earnest call for empathy in a country that is witnessing an unprecedented influx of immigrants.

… the bully shows a lack of empathy and may joke at another person's expense.

We often think of empathy—people's ability to share and understand each other's experiences—as a hard-wired trait, but it's actually more like a skill. The right experiences, habits and practices can increase our empathic capacity …

To have empathy, in the early 1900s, was to enliven an object. … Some of the earliest psychology experiments on empathy focused on … a bodily feeling or movement that produced a sense of merging with an object. One subject imagining a bunch of grapes felt a cool, juicy feeling all over.

He felt great empathy toward the poor.

Lead by example and demonstrate the power of empathy and compassion. / There's no love in this character, no hidden empathy or tenderness that surfaces late in the story. / A little politeness, respect and empathy go a long way toward making our online experiences enjoyable and fulfilling. / Seen from the protagonists' worldview, the film becomes an earnest call for empathy in a country that is witnessing an unprecedented influx of immigrants.

… the bully shows a lack of empathy and may joke at another person's expense. / We often think of empathy—people's ability to share and understand each other's experiences—as a hard-wired trait, but it's actually more like a skill. The right experiences, habits and practices can increase our empathic capacity …

Word Forms & Grammar

empathies

empathy

empathy (countable and uncountable, plural empathies)

Origin of Empathy

Origin 1: Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathēs emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion pathos

Origin 2: A 20th-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.

First Known Use

1909