Empathy or sympathy?
empathy is a noun meaning “Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional…”; sympathy is a noun meaning “A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) sympathy is about 1.9 times as common as empathy.
What is the difference between empathy and sympathy?
| empathy | sympathy | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun |
| Meaning | Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person The capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding | A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another The formal expression of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune |
| Example | She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too | Many people in Hollywood were blacklisted merely because they were suspected of Communist sympathies |
| Forms | empathies | sympathies |
| Pronunciation | /ˈɛmpəθi/ | /ˈsɪm.pə.θi/ /ˈsəm.pə.θi/ |
| In writing | 5.2 times per million words | 10 times per million words |
Sources: empathy and sympathy 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 empathy and sympathy
empathy
- 1
Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person
She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too
- 2
The capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding
- 3
A paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions
sympathy
- 1
A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another
- 2
The formal expression of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune
- 3
The ability to share the feelings of another
- 4
Inclination to think or feel alike; emotional or intellectual accord; common feeling
- 5
Support in the form of shared feelings or opinions
- 6
Feeling of loyalty; tendency towards, agreement with or approval of an opinion or aim; a favorable attitude
Many people in Hollywood were blacklisted merely because they were suspected of Communist sympathies
- 7
An affinity, association or mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition
- 8
Mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it
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, empathy or sympathy?
empathy appears 5.2 times per million words; sympathy 10 times per million words.
empathy 5.2 times per million wordssympathy 10 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 empathy vs sympathy?
“empathy vs sympathy” is searched about 90,500 times a month on Google and 5,700 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“sympathy vs empathy”, “empathy or sympathy”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.