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Empathy vs Commiserating - What's the difference?

empathy | commiserating |

As a noun empathy

is the intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person.

As a verb commiserating is

.

empathy

English

Noun

(wikipedia empathy)
  • the intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person
  • capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding
    • She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too.
  • (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 (term) is weaker and more distant – concern, but not shared emotion: “I care for you”.

    commiserating

    English

    Verb

    (head)