Sympathize vs Empath - What's the difference?
sympathize | empath |
To show sympathy; to be affected by feelings similar to those of another, in consequence of knowing the person to be thus affected.
* Addison
To have a common feeling, as of bodily pleasure or pain.
* Buckminster
To agree; to be in accord; to harmonize.
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
* 2005 , Catherine Asaro, Schism
* 2007 , Ellen Dugan, Natural Witchery
As a verb sympathize
is to show sympathy; to be affected by feelings similar to those of another, in consequence of knowing the person to be thus affected.As a noun empath is
one who has the ability to sense emotions; someone who is empathic or practises empathy.sympathize
English
Verb
(North America)- Their countrymen sympathized with their heroes in all their adventures.
- The mind will sympathize so much with the anguish and debility of the body, that it will be too distracted to fix itself in meditation.
- (Dryden)
Usage notes
Used similarly to empathize, interchangeably in looser usage. In stricter usage, (term) is stronger and more intimate, while sympathize is weaker and more distant; see . Further, the general “agree, accord” sense of sympathize is not shared with (term).empath
English
Noun
(en noun)- 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.
- 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.
- The aura may, in fact, linger around objects or places and that "lingering energy" is what an empath senses and intuits.
