Empathetic or empathic?
empathetic is an adjective meaning “Showing empathy for others, recognizing their feelings”; empathic is an adjective meaning “Showing or expressing empathy”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) empathetic is about 2.2 times as common as empathic.
What is the difference between empathetic and empathic?
| empathetic | empathic | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective |
| Meaning | Showing empathy for others, recognizing their feelings | Showing or expressing empathy Doing so through psychological talent or training |
| Example | none recorded | Be fair to people: even those who manage to be empathic can't be telepathic. They're only human – they can't read your mind |
| Pronunciation | /ˌɛmpəˈθɛtɪk/ [ˌɛmpəˈθɛɾɪk] | /ɛmˈpæθɪk/ |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words | about once in every 3 million words |
Sources: empathetic and empathic in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of empathetic and empathic
empathetic
- 1
Showing empathy for others, recognizing their feelings
empathic
- 1
Showing or expressing empathy
Be fair to people: even those who manage to be empathic can't be telepathic. They're only human – they can't read your mind
- 2
Doing so through psychological talent or training
Be fair to people: not everyone can be empathic, like Cathy is. Her gift is rare
- 3
Doing so through psychicness, telepathy, etc: that is, through either supernatural powers or neurotechnological powers
Near-synonyms: telempathic, telepathic
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, empathetic or empathic?
empathetic appears about once in every 1 million words; empathic about once in every 3 million words.
empathetic about once in every 1 million wordsempathic about once in every 3 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).