Apathy

How to spell apathy

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce apathy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does apathy mean?

1. nounA lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern about something.

Apathy in a sentence

• Voter apathy kept turnout at the local election shockingly low.

• Months of overtime had left the whole team in a state of apathy.

Where does apathy come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek apatheia, meaning 'freedom from suffering' or an absence of feeling, built from a-, a prefix meaning 'without', and pathos, meaning 'feeling, emotion, or suffering'. To the Stoic philosophers, apatheia was actually a positive ideal: a calm state untroubled by the passions. Latin took it up as apathia, and the word entered English in the early 1600s, at first carrying that philosophical sense of composed indifference. Over time the meaning soured into the modern one of dull listlessness or a lack of interest and motivation. The same pathos root still powers familiar relatives such as 'sympathy', 'empathy', and 'pathetic', and noticing that shared 'path' is the easiest way to remember the single 'p' and the 'th' in the middle.

How the word is built

• a- (without)
• path (from Greek pathos: feeling, suffering)
• -y (noun suffix)