empathetic
UK/ˌɛmpəˈθɛtɪk//ˌɛmpəˈθɛtɪk/
empathetic adjective: showing empathy for others, recognizing their feelings.
Adjective
empathetic (comparative more empathetic, superlative most empathetic)
- Showing empathy for others, recognizing their feelings.
- And where does kindness come from? Are you born with it? Or can you learn to be compassionate and empathetic?2025 November 13, Kamala Thiagarajan, “If you're going to be kind to another human, today is the day to do it!”, in NPR
- Synonyms:
- empathic
Synonyms of empathetic
Forms of empathetic
| comparative | more empathetic |
|---|---|
| superlative | most empathetic |
Origin of empathetic
Derived from empathic, modified to sound more similar to sympathetic.
Words formed from empathetic
Words that rhyme with empathetic
Questions about empathetic
- What does empathetic mean?
- Empathetic means showing empathy for others, recognizing their feelings.
- What part of speech is empathetic?
- Empathetic is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce empathetic?
- Empathetic is pronounced /ˌɛmpəˈθɛtɪk/ (UK).
Words near empathetic in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: empathetic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Yangolin-empathetic.wav.
Cite this entry: “empathetic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/empathetic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
