victoriousvocabulary:
The Difference Between Empathy and Sympathy 101
The words empathy and sympathy are often confused for each other as they are feelings concerning other people and are usually used in similar contexts. Whilst closely related, they have subtle but vital differences between them.
Sympathy is literally “feeling with” - compassion, distress, sorrow for or commiseration with another person. In sympathy, the emotions are recognised.
Empathy, by contrast, is literally “feeling into” - the ability to project one’s personality into another person, i.e. when you understand and experience another’s feelings for yourself. In empathy, the emotions are felt.
In summary, empathy is more specific and personal as it involves putting yourself in that person’s shoes and knowing what they are going through. Sympathy is a more general feeling of compassion or sorrow (etc) for another person’s situation. Both involve the sincere recognition and acceptance of another person’s emotional state which is often followed by the desire to alleviate their suffering.
Etymologies:
The word sympathy comes from the ancient Greek word sumpátheia (sún, “with, together” + páthos, “suffering”). This was modified in Late Latin to sympathia and then in Middle French to sympathie.
Empathy was coined in 1909, about (~300 years after the introduction of the word sympathy) by British psychologist Edward B. Titchener. While the word’s spelling borrows from the ancient Greek word, empátheia, which meant “physical affection, passion, partiality”, Titchener used “empathy” for the purpose of translating a German word (Einfühlung) and its concept of shared feeling. Interestingly, in modern Greek, empátheia no longer has positive connotations. It instead refers to negative feelings or prejudices against another person.
More information.
[James R. Eads - Us, Over Time, Passing By]