Empathetic or sympathetic?
empathetic is an adjective meaning “Showing empathy for others, recognizing their feelings”; sympathetic is an adjective meaning “Of, related to, feeling, showing, or characterized by sympathy”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) sympathetic is about 7.4 times as common as empathetic.
What is the difference between empathetic and sympathetic?
| empathetic | sympathetic | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective, noun |
| Meaning | Showing empathy for others, recognizing their feelings | Of, related to, feeling, showing, or characterized by sympathy Showing approval of or favor towards an idea or action A sympathetic nerve |
| Example | none recorded | John looked very upset. I gave him a sympathetic look |
| Pronunciation | /ˌɛmpəˈθɛtɪk/ [ˌɛmpəˈθɛɾɪk] | /ˌsɪm.pəˈθɛt.ɪk/ |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words | 6.5 times per million words |
Sources: empathetic and sympathetic 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 sympathetic
empathetic
- 1
Showing empathy for others, recognizing their feelings
sympathetic
- 1
Of, related to, feeling, showing, or characterized by sympathy
John looked very upset. I gave him a sympathetic look
- 2
A sympathetic nerve
- 3
Showing approval of or favor towards an idea or action
- 4
Attracting the liking of others. (of a person)
- 5
Designed in a sensitive or appropriate way
- 6
Relating to, producing, or denoting an effect which arises through an affinity, interdependence, or mutual association
Sympathetic magic is based on imitation or correspondence
- 7
A supernatural connection or power resulting from two items having the same form or some other correspondence. (of magic)
- 8
Relating to musical tones produced by sympathetic vibration or to strings so tuned as to sound by sympathetic vibration
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 sympathetic?
empathetic appears about once in every 1 million words; sympathetic 6.5 times per million words.
empathetic about once in every 1 million wordssympathetic 6.5 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search empathetic vs sympathetic?
“empathetic vs sympathetic” is searched about 9,900 times a month on Google and 270 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“sympathetic vs empathetic”, “empathetic or sympathetic”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.