em·pa·thy | \ ˈem-pə-thē
Definition of empathy
1 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner also : the capacity for this
2 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it
Sympathy vs. Empathy
Sympathy and empathy are closely related words, bound by shared origins and the similar circumstances in which each is applicable, yet they are not synonymous. For one thing, sympathy is considerably older than empathy, having existed in our language for several hundred years before its cousin was introduced, and its greater age is reflected in a wider breadth of meaning. Sympathy may refer to "feelings of loyalty" or "unity or harmony in action or effect," meanings not shared by empathy. In the contexts where the two words do overlap, sympathy implies sharing [or having the capacity to share] the feelings of another, while empathy tends to be used to mean imagining, or having the capacity to imagine, feelings that one does not actually have.
What is the difference between empathy and compassion?
Some of our users are interested in the difference between empathy and compassion. Compassion is the broader word: it refers to both an understanding of another’s pain and the desire to somehow mitigate that pain:
Our rationalizations for lying [or withholding the truth]—"to protect her," "he could never handle it”—come more out of cowardice than compassion.
— Eric Utne, Utne Reader, November/December 1992
Sometimes compassion is used to refer broadly to sympathetic understanding:
Nevertheless, when Robert Paxton's "Vichy France" appeared in a French translation in 1973, his stark and devastating description ... was rather badly received in France, where many critics accused this scrupulous and thoughtful young historian either of misinterpreting the Vichy leaders' motives or of lacking compassion.
— Stanley Hoffmann, The New York Times Book Review, 1 Nov. 1981
Empathy refers to the ability to relate to another person’s pain vicariously, as if one has experienced that pain themselves:
For instance, people who are highly egoistic and presumably lacking in empathy keep their own welfare paramount in making moral decisions like how or whether to help the poor.
— Daniel Goleman, The New York Times, 28 Mar. 1989"The man thought all this talk was fine, but he was more concerned with just getting water. And, if I was going to be successful on this mission, I had to remember what his priorities were. The quality you need most in United Nations peacekeeping is empathy."
— Geordie Elms, quoted in MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Autumn 1992
In some cases, compassion refers to both a feeling and the action that stems from that feeling:
Compassion, tenderness, patience, responsibility, kindness, and honesty are actions that elicit similar responses from others.
— Jane Smiley, Harper’s, June 2000
while empathy tends to be used just for a feeling:
She is also autistic, a disability that she argues allows her a special empathy with nonhuman creatures.
— Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books, 29 April 2009
Examples of empathy in a Sentence
Poetic empathy understandably seeks a strategy of identification with victims … — Helen Vendler, New Republic, 5 May 2003 This is tough love with a vengeance, but what a gruesome view of God's saints bereft of all empathy. — Sidney Callahan, Commonweal, 19 Apr. 2002 Enter a new inmate … a giant black man with a gift of preternatural empathy; he can literally suck the pain out of people. — Richard Corliss, Time, 13 Dec. 1999 But in all those years of young womanhood, my Do-Unto-Others empathy never extended beyond sharing a trolley seat. — Lois Mark Stalvey, The Education of a WASP, 1989 He felt great empathy with the poor. His months spent researching prison life gave him greater empathy towards convicts. See More
Recent Examples on the Web Shane is, without question, an entitled rich kid, but White still wanted to write him from a place of empathy. — Tyler Coates, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Aug. 2022 Deftly balancing a tongue-in-cheek, humorous look at its celebrity specimens with generous doses of empathy, Celebrity Memoir Book Club often ends up proving a different point entirely. — Liam Hess, Vogue, 17 Aug. 2022 Empathy plays a huge role in determining the good versus the bad, and what if the practice of empathy could be supported through an organization’s desire to boost mental health? — Keven Knight, Forbes, 17 Aug. 2022 The second misconception is your lack of empathy for future you. — Katy Milkman, CNN, 22 July 2022 There's no way to find an ounce of empathy for an iconoclastic Jewish neo-Nazi, right? — Keith Nelson, Men's Health, 21 July 2022 The whole nation should understand and have a level of empathy to understand that this could happen anywhere in any peace-loving community. — Chicago Tribune Staff, Chicago Tribune, 6 July 2022 Senior Taliban officials rushed to the affected districts in a show of empathy but demanded outside assistance. — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 22 June 2022 But the violence itself is the product of the opposite sensibility—a profound absence of empathy. — The New Yorker, 4 June 2022 See More
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'empathy.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
First Known Use of empathy
1909, in the meaning defined at sense 2
History and Etymology for empathy
Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathēs emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion — more at pathos
Learn More About empathy
Statistics for empathy
Cite this Entry
“Empathy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, //www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy. Accessed 30 Aug. 2022.
More Definitions for empathy
em·pa·thy | \ ˈem-pə-thē \
Kids Definition of empathy
: the understanding and sharing of the emotions and experiences of another person He has great empathy toward the poor.
em·pa·thy | \ ˈem-pə-thē \
Medical Definition of empathy
1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it
2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner also : the capacity for empathy