Empathize or sympathize?
empathize is a verb meaning “to feel empathy for another person”; sympathize is a verb meaning “To have, show or express sympathy; to be affected by feelings similar to those…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) sympathize is about 2.0 times as common as empathize.
What is the difference between empathize and sympathize?
| empathize | sympathize | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | verb |
| Meaning | to feel empathy for another person | CanadaUSTo have, show or express sympathy; to be affected by feelings similar to those of another, in consequence of knowing the person to be thus affected; to feel… CanadaUSTo support, favour, have sympathy (with a political cause or movement, a side in a conflict / in an action) |
| Example | empathize with someone | none recorded |
| Forms | empathizes, empathizing, empathized | sympathizes, sympathizing, sympathized |
| Pronunciation | /ˈɛmpəˌθaɪz/ | not recorded |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words | 1.1 times per million words |
Sources: empathize and sympathize 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 empathize and sympathize
empathize
- 1
to feel empathy for another person
empathize with someone
sympathize
- 1
CanadaUSTo have, show or express sympathy; to be affected by feelings similar to those of another, in consequence of knowing the person to be thus affected; to feel for
- 2
CanadaUSTo support, favour, have sympathy (with a political cause or movement, a side in a conflict / in an action)
- 3
CanadaUSTo say in an expression of sympathy
- 4
CanadaUSTo have a common feeling, as of bodily pleasure or pain
- 5
CanadaUSTo agree; to be in accord; to harmonize
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, empathize or sympathize?
empathize appears about once in every 2 million words; sympathize 1.1 times per million words.
empathize about once in every 2 million wordssympathize 1.1 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 empathize vs sympathize?
“empathize vs sympathize” is searched about 350 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.