EMPATHY

empathy

(noun) understanding and entering into another’s feelings

Source: WordNet® 3.1

Etymology

Noun

empathy (countable and uncountable, plural empathies)

Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person.

Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding.

(parapsychology, science fiction) A paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions.

Usage notes

Used similarly to sympathy, interchangeably in looser usage. In stricter usage, empathy is stronger and more intimate, meaning that the subject understands and shares an emotion with the object—as in “I feel your pain”—while sympathy is weaker and more distant—concern, but not shared emotion: “I care for you”.

Source: Wiktionary