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Sympathy vs. Empathy

Difference Between Sympathy and Empathy

Sympathy

Sympathy is the perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form. According to David Hume, this sympathetic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint from a personal perspective to the perspective of another group or individual who is in need.
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Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of emotional states.
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Sympathy

A feeling of pity or sorrow for the distress of another; commiseration.
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Empathy

The ability to identify with or understand the perspective, experiences, or motivations of another individual and to comprehend and share another individual's emotional state.
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Sympathy

often sympathies An expression of such feeling
offered her sympathies to the mourning family.
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Empathy

The projection of one's own feelings or thoughts onto something else, such as an object in a work of art or a character in a novel or film.
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Sympathy

Mutual understanding or feeling between people
"Like two frightened children, we sought at the same time to comfort one another, so quick was the sympathy between us" (Nicholas Meyer).
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Empathy

Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person.
She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too.
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Sympathy

Agreement with or support for an opinion or position
The mayor is in sympathy with the proposal.
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Empathy

Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding.
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Sympathy

often sympathies A tendency to support a position or opinion
a politician of conservative sympathies.
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Empathy

A paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions.
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Sympathy

A relationship or affinity between things in which whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other
"Continuous measurements of ionospheric densities ... showed a variation of noon ionization in sympathy with sunspot activity" (E.V. Appelton).
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Empathy

MDMA.
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Sympathy

(Physics) A relation between bodies such that vibrations in one body cause sympathetic vibrations in another.
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Empathy

understanding and entering into another's feelings
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Sympathy

(Physiology) A relation between parts or organs by which a disease or disorder in one induces an effect in the other.
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Sympathy

A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another.
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Sympathy

(in plural) The formal expression of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune.
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Sympathy

The ability to share the feelings of another.
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Sympathy

Inclination to think or feel alike; emotional or intellectual accord; common feeling.
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Sympathy

(in plural) Support in the form of shared feelings or opinions.
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Sympathy

Feeling of loyalty; tendency towards, agreement with or approval of an opinion or aim; a favorable attitude.
Many people in Hollywood were blacklisted merely because they were suspected of Communist sympathies.
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Sympathy

An affinity, association or mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.
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Sympathy

Mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it.
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Sympathy

(art) Artistic harmony, as of shape or colour in a painting.
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Sympathy

Feeling corresponding to that which another feels; the quality of being affected by the affection of another, with feelings correspondent in kind, if not in degree; fellow-feeling.
They saw, but other sight instead - a crowdOf ugly serpents! Horror on them fell,And horrid sympathy.
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Sympathy

An agreement of affections or inclinations, or a conformity of natural temperament, which causes persons to be pleased, or in accord, with one another; as, there is perfect sympathy between them.
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Sympathy

Kindness of feeling toward one who suffers; pity; commiseration; compassion.
I value myself upon sympathy, I hate and despise myself for envy.
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Sympathy

The reciprocal influence exercised by organs or parts on one another, as shown in the effects of a diseased condition of one part on another part or organ, as in the vomiting produced by a tumor of the brain.
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Sympathy

A tendency of inanimate things to unite, or to act on each other; as, the sympathy between the loadstone and iron.
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Sympathy

Similarity of function, use office, or the like.
The adverb has most sympathy with the verb.
Fault,Acknowledged and deplored, in Adam wroughtCommiseration.
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Sympathy

an inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinion;
his sympathies were always with the underdog
I knew I could count on his understanding
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Sympathy

sharing the feelings of others (especially feelings of sorrow or anguish)
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Sympathy

a relation of affinity or harmony between people; whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other;
the two of them were in close sympathy
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