Empathy means understanding or sharing another person’s feelings by considering their perspective. Sympathy means feeling concern or care for someone, especially when they are experiencing difficulties.
Compare:
The counselor showed empathy by recognizing why returning to school after a long absence felt overwhelming.
Neighbors expressed sympathy for the family whose home had been damaged in the flood.
The counselor understands the student’s emotional experience. The neighbors express concern for people facing hardship.
The two feelings can exist together. Someone may understand another person’s situation and also feel sympathy for them.
Empathy vs Sympathy: The Main Difference
| Empathy | Sympathy |
|---|---|
| Focuses on understanding or sharing another person’s feelings | Focuses on concern, care, or compassion for someone |
| Involves considering another person’s perspective | Often involves responding to someone’s hardship |
| Can relate to positive or negative emotions | Is especially common in situations involving suffering or misfortune |
| Common expressions: show empathy, empathy for others | Common expressions: express sympathy, offer condolences |
These distinctions are useful when choosing between the words, but they are not absolute. The meanings sometimes overlap in everyday English.
What Does Empathy Mean?
Empathy is the ability to understand another person’s emotional experience or share in their feelings.
It involves considering how a situation affects that person, even when their circumstances are different from your own.
The manager showed empathy for employees who were anxious about the planned restructuring.
Rather than dismissing their concerns, the manager recognizes how uncertainty about their jobs may affect them.
You do not need to have experienced the same event to empathize with someone. Understanding another person’s perspective does not require knowing exactly how they feel.
Empathy also applies to positive experiences.
When her brother received his first publishing contract, Leena understood why the achievement meant so much to him after years of rejected manuscripts.
His excitement and relief are part of the emotional experience she understands.
Empathy can involve recognizing someone’s feelings, emotionally connecting with them, or both. It does not always mean experiencing those feelings yourself.
What Does Sympathy Mean?
Sympathy commonly refers to concern, care, or compassion for someone experiencing difficulties.
After the fire damaged the village bakery, neighboring shopkeepers expressed sympathy for the family who owned it.
The shopkeepers recognize the family’s hardship and feel concern for their well-being.
Sympathy is especially common when discussing illness, bereavement, disappointment, or other painful experiences.
When someone dies, expressions such as my deepest sympathies and please accept my sympathies are used to offer condolences.
Sympathy does not necessarily imply pity or looking down on someone. It can express genuine kindness and understanding.
Sympathy Can Also Mean Support or Agreement
Sympathy has another established meaning. It can refer to agreement with, or support for, someone’s ideas, interests, or position.
Several committee members expressed sympathy with the residents’ proposal to preserve the old public garden.
Here, the committee members are expressing support or agreement rather than sorrow.
This meaning also appears in expressions such as in sympathy with and sympathetic to, depending on the context.
Can You Feel Both Empathy and Sympathy?
Yes. The feelings are not mutually exclusive.
Imagine that a colleague has spent months preparing a research proposal, only to have the funding application rejected.
You may feel sympathy because the rejection is upsetting and has caused your colleague disappointment.
You may also show empathy by understanding why the decision feels especially discouraging after so much effort.
The same response can involve both concern and an understanding of another person’s perspective.
This is why the familiar distinction between feeling for someone and feeling with someone should not be treated as a strict rule.
Neither empathy nor sympathy is automatically a more appropriate response. The word you choose depends on whether you want to emphasize emotional understanding, concern, or both.
Empathetic vs Sympathetic
Empathetic and sympathetic are adjectives related to empathy and sympathy.
Empathetic describes someone who understands or relates to another person’s feelings.
The museum guide was empathetic toward visitors who became emotional while reading the wartime letters on display.
Sympathetic describes someone who shows understanding, concern, or support.
The editor was sympathetic when the illustrator needed additional time to finish the drawings.
In everyday English, the adjectives can overlap. A sympathetic person may also understand another person’s feelings deeply.
However, sympathetic has a broader use when expressing agreement with an idea or proposal.
The committee was sympathetic to the request for longer library opening hours.
The adjective empathic is also correct and has essentially the same meaning as empathetic. It is sometimes preferred in academic or professional writing.
Empathize vs Sympathize
The related verbs are empathize and sympathize.
Empathize with emphasizes understanding or relating to someone’s feelings.
The music teacher could empathize with the student’s frustration while learning a difficult new piece.
Sympathize with commonly expresses concern, understanding, or support.
Local residents sympathized with the shop owner after a series of break-ins.
Both verbs commonly use the preposition with when referring to a person.
In British English, the spellings empathise and sympathise are common. The -ize forms are standard in American English and are also accepted in British English.
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