Word of the Day:

August 22, 2025

apathy

noun AP-uh-thee

What it Means

Apathy refers either to a lack of feeling or emotion, or to a lack of interest or concern.

// Though the girl’s expression communicated apathy, Gina knew her daughter was actually very pleased at having won the poetry prize.

// While the previous mayor’s administration responded to the community’s needs with little more than apathy, city hall under the new leadership is making real changes.

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Apathy in Context

“I find myself shrugging a lot more. And answering, ‘That seems true.’ And saying the exact same thing to the opposing argument. ... I’ve found myself concerned about my apparent apathy and disinterest in picking fights. On the flip side, I’m an easier person to be around.” — Mari Andrew, How to Be a Living Thing: Meditations on Intuitive Oysters, Hopeful Doves, and Being a Human in the World, 2025

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Did You Know?

Once more without feeling! While its siblings antipathy, sympathy, and empathy refer to often strong emotions, whether tender or terrible, apathy is unconcerned with all that. Whether one is feeling blasé, indifferent, or—to use a more recent coinage—meh, apathy is the perfect word for such a lack of passion. At the root of apathy and its kin is páthos, a Greek word meaning “experience, misfortune, or emotion,” which led first to the adjective apathḗs (“not suffering, without passion or feeling, impassive”) and then the noun apatheîa before passing through Latin and Middle French on its way to English. The prefix a- in both means “without.” The other aforementioned páthos descendants are, of course, supplied with their own prefixes that give clues to their respective meanings: anti- (“opposite”), sym- (“at the same time”), and em- (“in” or “within”).

Test Your Vocabulary

Rearrange the letters to form an adjective that can mean both “absurd or laughable” and “having a capacity to move one to either compassionate or contemptuous pity”: HICTPAET

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