2570: Empathy: A False Friend Dec 26, 2021

English has two words, 'empathy' and 'sympathy', that clearly share a root and have similar meaning. The Greek '-πάθεια' ending means 'suffering'—in this case describing one's ability to understand another's pain—but in Greek εμπάθεια (empátheia) means 'malice'. A more literal translation of the Greek, though lacking the necessary negative connotation, could be 'passion', but would not be a desired quality. The reason behind this apparent division is that the English version was chosen as a deliberate if imperfect attempt to translate the German 'Einfühlung', rather than being trying to capture the Greek meaning.