Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Antipathy
/ænˈtɪpəθi/noun
A settled dislike of a person or thing, felt rather than argued.
The Greek roots
ἀντί
antí
against, opposite
πάθος
páthos
feeling, suffering
Literally: “feeling against”
The story of the word
The word arrived in English around 1600 partly through natural philosophy, where substances were said to hold sympathies and antipathies that made them mix or refuse to. Sympathy is its exact mirror, σύν plus πάθος, feeling with. The same πάθος gives pathos, pathology and apathy, the last of which is the absence of any feeling at all.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1600s
Same family
sympathyempathyapathypathos
In a sentence
Their antipathy went back to a committee meeting in 1998 that neither would explain.