Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - empathy

 noun  Etymology: Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathes emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion — more at pathos  Date: 1850  1. the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it  2. the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also the capacity for this