The word empathy didn’t exist until early 20th century. I looked in my oxford Universities press “The advanced Learner’s dictionary of current English 2nd edition (1963) and the word wasn’t in the dictionary. So I looked on the internet to find out when it became word. It is first used when they tried to translate the german word Einfühlung.
The meaning of word empathy is the following
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another
Oxford Universities press based on Google
The meaning of empathy is one of the original meanings of word sympathy in Greek. I understand that the word sympathy was confusing but whoever chose the word empathy didn’t know Greek because the word has the opposite meaning of empathy. Means someone that I really dislike passionately.
The word empathy originates from word passion in Greek (pathos) and en- which translates with. So it translates when you have passion for someone but in a bad way. The en+ usually has negative meaning in Greek. The word sympathy was more proper one because it means that you add your understanding in his passions.
As researchers didn’t want to use the word sympathy in Greek, they used the word ενσυναίσθηση (en-syn-aisthisi) that change the word passion with feeling and adds also the syn (as in the word sympathy).
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