empathy

empathy
empathy
1. This is originally a term used in psychology and aesthetics meaning ‘the power of identifying oneself mentally with (and so fully comprehending) a person or object of contemplation’. In general use it tends to replace sympathy or feeling for when these words are sometimes more appropriate; sympathy can be felt without the element of personal experience that is implied by empathy:

• Seeing our sadness, our empathy with the pain she was surely suffering, she said, ‘What's wrong with you all?’ —A. Davis, 1975

• It was a hard life, and Byron recounts it with empathy and gusto —Anthony Burgess, 1986.

It also gained some currency from educationists who established a fashion for teaching history by getting pupils to feel empathy for (or empathizing with) people of other ages, as an antidote to preoccupation with political history. But all that has changed again.
2. The corresponding adjective is either empathic or empathetic (the more usual form in the OEC, although neither is of particularly high frequency).

Modern English usage. 2014.

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  • empathy — (n.) 1903, from Ger. Einfühlung (from ein in + Fühlung feeling ), coined 1858 by German philosopher Rudolf Lotze (1817 1881) as a translation of Gk. empatheia passion, state of emotion, from en in (see EN (Cf. en ) (2)) + pathos feeling (see… …   Etymology dictionary

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  • empathy — ► NOUN ▪ the ability to empathize. DERIVATIVES empathetic adjective empathic adjective. ORIGIN Greek empatheia, from pathos feeling …   English terms dictionary

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