empathetic.

Able or willing to understand another person's feelings and perspective.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• empathetic response
• empathetic listener

On the page

Her empathetic response acknowledged his frustration without endorsing his conduct.

Usage notes

Primary category: psychology / human behavior. Forms: Comparative more empathetic; superlative most empathetic when comparison is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: character, behavior. Commonness: moderately common.