2020-09-15
180926-1 คำชวนสับสน ชุด E – Empathy – sympathy
การใช้ภาษาอังกฤษ ที่ถือว่า ถูกต้อง ในที่นี้ เป็นไป ตามมาตรฐาน ของภาษา
การใช้ภาษาอังกฤษ ไม่กำหนดมาตฐาน ถือตามส่วนใหญ่ที่ใช้แต่ละท้องถิ่น
ความหมาย อาจยืดหยุ่น ขึ้นอยู่กับ ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง “empathy” = ‘EM-puh-thee’
ออกเสียง “sympathy” = ‘SIM-puh-thee’
Abused, Confused, & Misused Words
empathy
ability toimagine oneself in the condition of another;
a vicarious participationin another’s emotions:
The widow expressed empathy for the woman who had just lost her husband.
Not to be confused with:
compassion – a deep sympathy for the sorrows of others, with an urge to alleviate their pain: The nurse showed great compassion for the injured children.
sympathy – a general kinship with another’s feelings no matter of what kind: He sent a sympathy card to the widow.
Dictionary.com
SYNONYM STUDY FOR SYMPATHY
Sympathy, compassion, pity, empathy
all denote the tendency, practice, or capacity to share in the feelings of others,
especially their distress, sorrow, or unfulfilled desires.
Sympathy is the broadest of these terms, signifying a general kinship with another's feelings, no matter of what kind: in sympathy with her yearning for peace and freedom; to extend sympathy to the bereaved.
Compassion implies a deep sympathy for the sorrows or troubles of another coupled to a powerful urge to alleviate the pain or distress or to remove its source: to show compassion for homeless refugees.
Pity usually suggests a kindly, but sometimes condescending, sorrow aroused by the suffering or ill fortune of others, often leading to a show of mercy: tears of pity for war casualties; to have pity on a thief driven by hunger.
Empathy most often refers to a vicarious participation in the emotions, ideas, or opinions of others, the ability to imagine oneself in the condition or predicament of another: empathy with those striving to improve their lives; to feel empathy with Hamlet as one watches the play.
Dictionary.com
VOCAB BUILDER
What does empathy mean?
Empathy is the ability or practice of imagining or trying to deeply understand what someone else is feeling or what it’s like to be in their situation.
Empathy is often described asthe ability to feel what others are feeling as if you are feeling it yourself.
To feel empathy for someone is to empathize.
People who do this are described as empathetic.
Some people use the word empathy interchangeably or in overlapping ways with the word sympathy, which generally means the sharing of emotions with someone else, especially sadness.
However, others distinguish the two terms by emphasizing theimportance of having empathy for others (feeling their pain) as opposed to having sympathy for them (feeling sorry for them).
Example: Having faced many of the same challenges, Nyala has empathy for immigrants and what it feels like to go through those challenges.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Sympathy vs. Empathy
Sympathy and empathy are closely related words, bound by shared origins and the similar circumstances in which each is applicable, yet they are not synonymous.
For one thing, sympathy is considerably olderthan empathy, having existed in our language for several hundred years before its cousin was introduced, and its greater age is reflectedin a wider breadth of meaning.
Sympathy may refer to "feelings of loyalty" or "unity or harmony in action or effect," meanings not shared by empathy.
In the contexts where the two words do overlap, sympathy impliessharing (or having the capacity to share) the feelings of another, while empathy tends to be used to mean imagining, or having the capacity to imagine, feelings that one does not actually have.
What is the difference between empathy and compassion?
Some of our users are interested in the differencebetween empathy and compassion.
Compassion is the broaderword: it refers to both an understanding of another’s pain and the desire to somehow mitigate that pain:
Sometimes compassion is used to refer broadly to sympathetic understanding:
Empathy refers to the ability to relate to another person’s pain vicariously, as if one has experienced that pain themselves:
In some cases, compassion refers to both a feeling and the action that stems from that feeling:
Did You Know?
In the 19th century, Charles Dickens counted on producing an empathetic response in his readers strong enough to make them buy the next newspaper installment of each novel.
Today, when reading a novel such as A Tale of Two Cities, only the most hard-hearted reader could failto feel empathy for Sidney Carton as he approaches the guillotine.
One who empathizes suffers along with the one who feels the sensations directly.
Empathy is similar to sympathy, but empathy usually suggests stronger, more instinctive feeling. So, a person who feels sympathy, or pity, for victims of a war in Asia may feel empathy for a close friend going through the much smaller disaster of a divorce.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Choose the Right Synonym for sympathy
ATTRACTION, AFFINITY, SYMPATHY
mean the relationship existing between things or persons that are naturally or involuntarily drawn together.
ATTRACTION implies the possession by one thing of a quality that pulls another to it. felt an attraction to danger
AFFINITY implies a susceptibility or predisposition on the part of the one drawn. an affinity for mathematics
SYMPATHY implies a reciprocal or natural relation between two things that are both susceptible to the same influence. two minds in sympathy
PITY, COMPASSION, COMMISERATION, CONDOLENCE, SYMPATHY
mean the act or capacity for sharing the painful feelings of another.
PITY implies tender or sometimes slightly contemptuous sorrow for one in misery or distress. felt pity for the captives
COMPASSION implies pity coupled with an urgent desire to aid or to spare. treats the homeless with great compassion
COMMISERATION suggests pity expressed outwardly in exclamations, tears, or words of comfort. murmurs of commiseration filled the loser's headquarters
CONDOLENCE applies chiefly to formal expression of grief to one who has suffered loss. expressed their condolences to the widow
SYMPATHY often suggests a tender concern but can also imply a power to enter into another's emotional experience of any sort. went to my best friend for sympathy in sympathy with her desire to locate her natural parents
Frequently Asked Questions About sympathy
What is the difference between sympathy and empathy?
Sympathy and empathy share a root, the Greek word pathos (meaning "feelings, emotion"), and likewise have some similarity in meaning.
Sympathy describes the act or capacity of sharing the feelings of another person; empathy may indicate less emotional closeness (understanding how another person may feel, without necessarily sharing their emotion).
What is the difference between sympathy and compassion?
While sympathy tends to refer to the act or capacity of sharing the feelings of another person, compassion often refers to both an understanding of another’s pain and the desire to somehow mitigate that pain.
What is the difference between sympathy and pity?
Pity often carries the meaningof tender or sometimes slightly contemptuous sorrow for one in misery or distress. While sympathy often suggests a tender concern, it also can imply a power to enter into another's emotional experience.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Words at Play
What's the difference between sympathy and empathy?
Though the words appear in similar contexts, they have different meanings
What to Know
Sympathy, constructed from the Greek "sym," meaning together, and "pathos," referring to feelings or emotion, is used to describe when one person shares the same feelings of another, such as when someone close is experiencing grief or loss.
Empathy is a newer word also related to "pathos," but there is a greater implication of emotional distance. With "empathy" you can imagine or understand to how someone might feel, without necessarily having those feelings yourself.
What is the difference between empathy and sympathy?
For the most part, these two nouns are not used interchangeably, but often we encounter them in contexts where their nuance is diminished or perhaps not relevant, providing no obvious indication why one was chosen over the other:
Sympathy vs. Empathy Difference
The difference in meaning is usually explained with some variation of the following:
sympathy is when you share the feelings of another;
empathy is when you understand the feelings of another
but do not necessarily share them.
In general, 'sympathy' is when you share the feelings of another; 'empathy' is when you understand the feelings of another but do not necessarily share them.
The nouns share a common root: the Greek noun pathos, meaning "feelings, emotion, or passion." Pathos itself refers to the evocation of pity or compassion in a work of art or literature.
Sympathy is Sharing
Sympathy (from sympathēs, "having common feelings, sympathetic") has several senses in the dictionary, among them "the act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings or interests of another." When we hear of sympathy, we tend to think of situations involving emotional pain:
When a friend grieves over the loss of a loved one, you might send that friend a sympathy card. The card says that you are feeling sad along with your friend because your friend is grieving.
The sym- in sympathy means "together" or "at the same time" and is the same Greek prefix that one finds in synonym, symmetry, and symposium (originally, an occasion for getting together and drinking).
Empathy is Understanding
Empathy emphasizes the notion of projection. You have empathy for a person when you can imagine how they might feel based on what you know about that person, despite not having those feelings explicitly communicated:
The sentiment behind empathy is often presented in the familiar idiom to put (oneself) in another's shoes.
History of Usage
A major difference between sympathy and empathy is how long each has been around. Compared to sympathy, which first appeared in English in the 16th century, empathy is a relatively new coinage, one originating from a relatively young science: psychology.
Empathy can be contrastedwith sympathy in terms of a kind of remove or emotional distance:
Many writers, likely aware of the thinness of the distinction, take pains to emphasize or explain what makes their choice of sympathy or empathy the proper one:
Wikitionary
ให้ข้อสังเกต การใช้ “empathy”
เมื่อใช้ อย่างไม่ เข้มงวด สามารถ แทนที่กันได้ กับ “sympathy”
หากแต่เมื่อ ใช้อย่าง เข้มงวด
ความหมาย “empathy” จะ เข้มแข็ง และเป็นกันเอง มากกว่า”
ขณะที่ “sympathy” แสดงความรู้สึก อ่อนลง และห่างเหิน มากกว่า
Concise Oxford English Dictionary:
ให้การสะกด ของ “empathy”
รูป คุณศัพท์ “empathetic” และ “empathic”
รูป กริยาวิเศษณ์ คือ “empathically” และ ”empathetically”
บ่อยครั้ง ที่ผู้คนสับสน กับ “empathy” และ “sympathy”
ความหมาย “empathy”
คือ “ความสามารถ ที่จะเข้าใจ” และ มีความรู้สึกร่วม กับผู้อื่น เช่น
“Both authors have the skill to make you feel empathy with their heroines.”
และ “sympathy” หมายถึง
“ความรู้สึก สงสารและเศร้า ต่อความโชคร้ายของผู้อื่น” เช่น
“They had great sympathy for the flood victims.”
Farlex Trivia Dictionary:
Sympathy - Empathy denotes a deep emotional understanding of another's feelings or problems, while sympathy is more general and can apply to small annoyances or setbacks.
See also related terms for problems.
Farlex Trivia Dictionary
ให้ความหมาย “empathy”
คือ “ชี้ให้เห็น ‘การเข้าใจความรู้สึกในจิตใจหรือปัญหา ของคนอื่น’อย่างลึกซึ้ง”
ขณะที่ ใช้ “sympathy” แสดงความเห็นใจ ในเรื่องทั่วไป
และสามารถใช้กับ “ปัญหา หรือ เรื่องเล็กน้อย”
Random House Kerneman English Multilingual Dictionary:
ให้ความหมาย ของ “empathy”
ว่าอ้างอิง “การมีความรู้สึกร่วมกับอารมณ์ความรู้สึกของผู้อื่น”
หรือ “สามารถ นึกภาพ ได้ว่า ‘ตนเองตกอยู่ในความโชคร้าย’ เหมือนผู้อื่น” เช่น
“To feel empathy with a character in a play.”
และว่าใช้ “sympathy” แสดงให้เห็น
“ความผูกพันที่มีต่อความรุ้สึกของผู้อื่น” ไม่ว่ากับเรื่องใดๆ เช่น
“Sympathy with their yearning for freedom.”
“Sympathy for the bereaved.”
Common Errors in English Usage Dictionary
You can place emphasis on something, or you can emphasize it;
but you can’t emphasize on it or stress on it, though you can place stress on it.
If you think you feel just like another person, you are feelingempathy.
If you just feel sorry for another person, you’re feeling sympathy.
