# empathy

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈɛmpəθi/ · frequency rank #10,844

## Definitions
1. Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person.
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.
4. MDMA.

## Etymology
A twentieth-century borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια (empátheia, literally “passion”) (formed from ἐν (en, “in, at”) + πάθος (páthos, “feeling”)), equivalent to em- + -pathy, coined by Edward Bradford Titchener in 1909 to translate German Einfühlung. The modern word in Greek εμπάθεια (empátheia) has an opposite meaning denoting strong negative feelings and prejudice against someone.

## Easily confused with
- **empty** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/empathy-vs-empty)
- **empathic** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/empathic-vs-empathy)

## Common misspellings (11)
`emapthy`, `emmpathy`, `empahty`, `empathhy`, `empathyy`, `empatthy`, `empatyh`, `emppathy`, `emptahy`, `epmathy`, `mepathy`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/empathy