Empathy vs. Sympathy
Difference Between Empathy and Sympathy
Empathynoun
The ability to identify with or understand the perspective, experiences, or motivations of another individual and to comprehend and share another individual's emotional state.
Sympathynoun
A feeling of pity or sorrow for the distress of another; commiseration.
Empathynoun
The projection of one's own feelings or thoughts onto something else, such as an object in a work of art or a character in a novel or film.
Sympathynoun
often sympathies An expression of such feeling
offered her sympathies to the mourning family.Empathynoun
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.Sympathynoun
Mutual understanding or feeling between people
"Like two frightened children, we sought at the same time to comfort one another, so quick was the sympathy between us" (Nicholas Meyer).Empathynoun
Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding.
Sympathynoun
Agreement with or support for an opinion or position
The mayor is in sympathy with the proposal.Empathynoun
A paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions.
Sympathynoun
often sympathies A tendency to support a position or opinion
a politician of conservative sympathies.Empathynoun
understanding and entering into another's feelings
Sympathynoun
A relationship or affinity between things in which whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other
"Continuous measurements of ionospheric densities ... showed a variation of noon ionization in sympathy with sunspot activity" (E.V. Appelton).Sympathynoun
(Physics) A relation between bodies such that vibrations in one body cause sympathetic vibrations in another.
Sympathynoun
(Physiology) A relation between parts or organs by which a disease or disorder in one induces an effect in the other.
Sympathynoun
A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another; compassion.
Sympathynoun
The ability to share the feelings of another.
Sympathynoun
A mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.
Sympathynoun
Tendency towards or approval of the aims of a movement.
Many people in Hollywood were blacklisted merely because they were suspected of Communist sympathies.Sympathynoun
an inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinion;
his sympathies were always with the underdogI knew I could count on his understandingSympathynoun
sharing the feelings of others (especially feelings of sorrow or anguish)
Sympathynoun
a relation of affinity or harmony between people; whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other;
the two of them were in close sympathy
