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Perceptive vs Empathy - What's the difference?

perceptive | empathy |

As an adjective perceptive

is having or showing keenness of perception, insight, understanding, or intuition.

As a noun empathy is

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

perceptive

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • having or showing keenness of perception, insight, understanding, or intuition
    • He is so perceptive when it comes to other people's feelings.

    Related terms

    * perceive * perception * perceptivity * perceptively

    Anagrams

    * ----

    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”.