Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One who has the ability to sense emotions; someone who is empathic or practises empathy.
  • noun science fiction, parapsychology A person with extra-sensory empathic ability, capable of sensing the emotions of others around them in a way unexplained by conventional science and psychology.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From empathy.

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Examples

  • Synopsis: An empath is hired to find a fellow human lost on a forbidden alien planet.

    REVIEW: The Good New Stuff edited by Gardner Dozois 2006

  • I do not know if you and your—your so-called empath are telling the truth or lying.

    INTO THE NEBULA GENE DeWEESE 2000

  • I do not know if you and your—your so-called empath are telling the truth or lying.

    INTO THE NEBULA GENE DeWEESE 2000

  • I do not know if you and your—your so-called empath are telling the truth or lying.

    INTO THE NEBULA GENE DeWEESE 2000

  • Being an "empath" may explain her wistful connection to the roiling waves of the ocean, the sanctuary it provides, and the sexual urges that seem to emanate from fathoms below …

    Archive 2007-02-01 Nalini Singh 2007

  • Everyone knew that Marissa was crushing on Dean Wilson, a senior who was an empath, like her.

    Haven Kristi Cook 2011

  • Everyone knew that Marissa was crushing on Dean Wilson, a senior who was an empath, like her.

    Haven Kristi Cook 2011

  • Everyone knew that Marissa was crushing on Dean Wilson, a senior who was an empath, like her.

    Haven Kristi Cook 2011

  • Parable of the Talents starts in a peaceful religious community led by Lauren Olamina, an empath who founds a faith called Earthseed; Jarret's troops turn this idealistic village into a concentration camp for "heathens" and "witches."

    MIND MELD: Bad Guys We Love to Hate: The Best Literary Villains in SF/F/H 2009

  • Eventually a triangle develops among Hayes, the empath; Samantha Fairbanks, the nice English girl foisted on him by the Company as an assistant; and Garvey, the hard-boiled city cop trying to do an impossible job.

    Why Steampunk's Time Has Come Tom Shippey 2011

Comments

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  • How would this word be different than simply "a person with or using empathy"?

    October 10, 2008

  • I'll gratefully defer to anyone who knows more about sci-fi than I (that would be almost everyone), but in Star Trek, at least, it seems to imply a superhuman ability. I.e. not just run-of-the-mill human empathy (which is arguably in short supply anyhow), but a bit of mind-reading and actually (physically?) feeling another person's emotions.

    October 10, 2008