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Compassionate vs Empath - What's the difference?

compassionate | empath |

As an adjective compassionate

is having, feeling or showing compassion; sympathetic.

As a verb compassionate

is (archaic) to feel compassion for; to pity, feel sorry for.

As a noun empath is

one who has the ability to sense emotions; someone who is empathic or practises empathy.

compassionate

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Having, feeling or showing compassion; sympathetic.
  • * South
    • There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate .
  • Of a leave, given to someone because of a domestic emergency.
    • compassionate leave
  • (obsolete) Inviting pity; pitiable.
    • (Shakespeare)

    Synonyms

    * ruthful

    Verb

    (compassionat)
  • (archaic) To feel compassion for; to pity, feel sorry for.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1903, author=William Godwin, title=Caleb Williams, chapter=, edition= citation
    • , passage=And yet I could not help bitterly compassionating the honest fellow, brought to the gallows, as he was, strictly speaking, by the machinations of that devil incarnate, Mr. Tyrrel. }}
  • * {{quote-book, year=1895, author=J. Sheridan Le Fanu, title=The Evil Guest, chapter=, edition= citation
    • , passage=The good Mrs. Mervyn accompanied these words with looks so sly, and emphasis so significant, that Rhoda was fain to look down, to hide her blushes; and compassionating the confusion she herself had caused, the kind old lady led her to the chamber which was henceforward, so long as she consented to remain, to be her own apartment. }}
  • * 1749 , Henry Fielding, Tom Jones , Folio Society 1973, p. 50:
    • The justice which Mr Allworthy had executed on Partridge at first met with universal approbation; but no sooner had he felt its consequences, than his neighbours began to relent, and to compassionate his case [...].

    empath

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • One who has the ability to sense emotions; someone who is empathic or practises empathy.
  • (science fiction, parapsychology) A person with extra-sensory empathic ability, capable of sensing the emotions of others around them in a way unexplained by conventional science and psychology.
  • * 1957 , Hans Stefan Santesson (editor), Fantastic Universe
    • She was the empath who would betray empaths if she got the chance. So they'd tried to fix things so that she didn't get the chance.
  • * 2005 , Catherine Asaro, Schism
    • How did a complete stranger know he was an empath ? He rarely if ever talked about it, even to his closest friends. It made people uneasy.
  • * 2007 , Ellen Dugan, Natural Witchery
    • The aura may, in fact, linger around objects or places and that "lingering energy" is what an empath senses and intuits.

    See also

    * telepath