empathy
EM-puh-theenounMeaning the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings
Memory hook EM-PATH: feeling IN their shoes. When Dev’s kite breaks, Lila feels his sadness as if it were her own and gives him a hug: she has empathy.
Thanks to his empathy, Sami always knew when a friend needed cheering up.
In context Instead of laughing when Kai dropped his lunch tray, Rosa showed empathy: she remembered how embarrassed she had felt last year and quietly helped him clean up.
Similar understanding, compassion, fellow feeling
Opposite indifference, callousness
From Greek em- (in) + pathos (feeling); English took the word up in the early 1900s.