Both words are about caring for how someone else feels. The difference is how close you get.
- Sympathy means feeling sorry for someone.
- Empathy means understanding what someone feels, as if you stood in their shoes.
Sympathy: feeling for someone
Sympathy is concern and care for someone who is having a hard time. You stay outside their feelings, and you care.
I have great sympathy for anyone stuck in traffic.
She sent a card to show her sympathy.
The team showed sympathy when their friend lost the game.
Empathy: feeling with someone
Empathy is the ability to understand what another person feels, and to imagine being in their place.
A good teacher shows empathy when a student is nervous.
She understood his worry because she had felt the same, so she answered with empathy.
Empathy helps us be kind.
Easy way to tell them apart
Ask: Am I feeling sorry for them, or feeling with them?
- Feeling sorry for them? Sympathy.
- Understanding what they feel from the inside? Empathy.
💡 The OddLingo Trick
Both words end in -pathy, from a Greek word for feeling. The start of the word tells you the direction.
- Sym- means together: sympathy feels with someone's trouble.
- Em- means in: empathy goes in to their feelings.
⚠️ Common mistakes
Feeling sorry from outside? Use sympathy.
❌ I felt empathy for him, but I did not understand his problem.
✅ I felt sympathy for him, but I did not understand his problem.
Understanding from inside? Use empathy.
❌ She showed sympathy because she had been through the same thing.
✅ She showed empathy because she had been through the same thing.
Good to know
Sympathy is the older word. It came into English in the 1500s from Greek syn (together) and pathos (feeling). Empathy is much newer: it was modelled in 1908 on a German word, Einfühlung, which was used in art, and it first meant how a viewer projects their own feelings into a painting.
💬 In a conversation
Zara: My sandwich fell on the floor.
Ben: I have sympathy.
Zara: I have empathy. Mine fell yesterday.
Ben: Then we both have lunch problems.