'Sympathy' is Greek for 'fellow feeling' — from 'syn-' (together) + 'pathos' (suffering).
Feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune; understanding between people based on shared feelings; a relationship of affinity or harmony.
From Latin 'sympathīa,' from Greek 'sympatheia' (fellow feeling, community of feeling, affinity between things), from 'sympathēs' (having a fellow feeling), composed of 'syn-' (together, with, at the same time) and 'pathos' (feeling, suffering, experience), from PIE *kwent(h)- (to suffer, to endure). The PIE root *kwent(h)- also underlies Greek 'penthos' (grief) and 'paschein' (to suffer — whence 'Passion' as the suffering of Christ). Greek 'sympatheia' originally described not emotional fellow-feeling but a physical-metaphysical affinity between