Empathy vs sympathy
Empathy is understanding how another person feels, as if you were in their place. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone who is hurting or in trouble.
empathy noun
The ability to understand another person's thoughts and feelings, or to imagine yourself in their place.
- Good nurses show empathy for patients who are frightened before surgery.
- Having been new in town herself, she had real empathy for the new students.
sympathy noun
A feeling of pity or sorrow for someone who is suffering or in trouble.
- He spoke with genuine sympathy to the grieving widow at the service.
- We sent a card to show our sympathy after her father died.
Watch out
- Sympathy can also mean the ability to share another person's feelings, which is close to empathy. Feeling sorry for someone is still its most common meaning.The novel draws the reader into deep sympathy with its lonely hero.
- Sympathy can mean support for or agreement with an idea or a group. Empathy does not have this meaning.Her political sympathies lay firmly with the reformers.
- Sympathy can also describe things that react together, where a change in one causes a matching change in the other.Pluck the lower string and its octave will vibrate in sympathy.
Test yourself
Please accept our deepest blank for your loss.
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sympathy. This is a formal expression of sorrow for someone's loss.
A good counselor has the blank to see the problem through the client's eyes.
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empathy. Seeing through someone's eyes means understanding their thoughts and feelings.
Several unions walked out in blank with the dismissed workers.
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sympathy. In sympathy with means giving support because you share their feelings or opinions.
She did not just feel sorry for the new hires; her blank let her imagine exactly how their first week felt from the inside.
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empathy. Imagining how it feels from the inside is what empathy means. Feeling sorry is sympathy.