Sympathy derives from Greek words meaning “with feeling.

” The word is most commonly used to

describe the way we share someone else’s feelings, especially feelings of sorrow or trouble. Hence,
greeting cards given to mourning families are called sympathy cards. Sympathy can also refer to the
sense of harmony between people with the same tastes, disposition, or opinions. When a person
feels sympathy toward a cause or an organization, he has feelings of approval, loyalty, or support.

The Greek phrase that lends empathy its meaning is “passion from feelings or emotion.” Most
people know empathy has to do with understanding and sharing the experiences, feelings, and
emotions of another person. However, empathy can also refer to using imagination to ascribe your
feelings or attitudes to an object, such as a painting or a natural object.

Examples: Sympathy and Empathy in Sentences

Which quality was Whitman illustrating in his poem? Empathy. By becoming “the wounded
person,” he vicariously experiences their suffering. Is it possible to completely understand
how someone else feels? Most people have to content themselves with feeling sympathy—the
quality of caring about someone’s misfortunes or the feeling of emotional or intellectual
accord with another individual.

In brief, empathy is feeling with or alongside someone, while sympathy is feeling sorry for, which
Brene Brown, research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work,
explores in the video below. Brown reduces the difference between empathy and sympathy as the
difference between feeling with and feeling for, calling empathy a ‘sacred space’ and a ‘choice.’

Oxford Dictionary defines sympathy as, ‘Feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s
misfortune.’ 

Example of sympathy: They had great sympathy for the flood victims

If that were to become something more empathetic, it might read, ‘They could understand the
range of emotions and loss experienced by the flood victims and how those emotions changed
over time based on their experiences.’

Of course, empathy is a huge challenge and sustained empathy is more or less impossible. If
you’re spending all of your time imagining someone else’s feelings, they become your
feelings.

According to Oxford Dictionary, a key difference between empathy and sympathy is that the
latter involves a degree of judgment or evaluation–that the sympathizer assumes they know
what another person might feel, and then extends that emotional experience to pity, for
example.

‘Empathy means ‘the ability to understand and share the feelings of another’ (as in both
authors have the skill to make you feel empathy with their heroines), whereas sympathy
means ‘feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune’ (as in they had great
sympathy for the flood victims)
While the difference feels narrow, it is crucial: empathy focuses on a mutual and shared
(albeit potentially asynchronous) emotional experience, whereas sympathy moves more
swiftly from feeling with to feeling for.

Sympathy Meaning

Sympathy involves feelings of compassion, sorrow, sadness, or pity for another person or
other people who are facing difficult circumstances. It is an emotion experienced in reaction
to something that happens to other people. When you feel sorry for someone, you have
sympathy for that person.

When someone loses a loved one, it is common to feel sympathy towards that person and
their family. Condolence messages are often used to express sympathy. You can have
sympathy (noun) for someone or you can sympathize (verb) with them.

Empathy Meaning

Empathy is stronger than sympathy. It goes beyond feeling compassion for their loss. It is
the ability to put yourself in the place of another and understand someone else's feelings by
identifying with them. With empathy, you put yourself in another's shoes and view the
situation through their eyes to get a real sense of what their experience is like. Rather than
just feeling bad for the other person, showing empathy involves sharing their feelings.

 A person has empathy if they can realistically perceive how the other person is feeling and
share those feelings, even if they haven’t experienced a similar situation.
 Someone lacking empathy may not be able to understand why another person is upset over
a situation if they cannot or will not imagine themselves in that person's place.

You can have empathy (noun) for someone or you can empathize (verb) with them. Review
some powerful examples of empathy statements to help further illustrate this concept.

Empathy vs. Sympathy: An Easy Way to Remember

An easy way to stop the confusion between sympathy and empathy is to remember this:

 Sympathy is a feeling you share with another person.

 Empathy is the ability to understand the emotions of another person.

To put it another way, empathy vs. sympathy is a difference between the head (empathy) and
the heart (sympathy).
The Three Types of Empathy
According to psychologist and pioneer in the field of emotions, Paul Ekman, Ph.D., three
distinct types of empathy have been identified:

 Cognitive Empathy: Also called “perspective taking,” cognitive empathy is the

ability to understand and predict the feelings and thoughts of other by imagining one’s
self in their situation.
 Emotional Empathy: Closely related to cognitive empathy, emotional empathy is the
ability to actually feel what another person feels or at least feel emotions similar to
theirs. In emotional empathy, there is always some level of shared feelings. Emotional
empathy can be a trait among persons diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.
 Compassionate Empathy: Driven by their deep understanding of the other person’s
feelings based on shared experiences, compassionately empathic people make actual
efforts to help.