apathy

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun an absence of emotion or enthusiasm
  2. noun the trait of lacking enthusiasm for or interest in things generally

Etymology

From French apathie, from Latin apathīa, from Ancient Greek ἀπάθεια (apátheia, “impassibility”, “insensibility”, “freedom from emotion”), from ἀπαθής (apathḗs, “not suffering or having suffered”, “without experience of”), from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + πάθος (páthos, “anything that befalls one”, “incident”, “emotion”, “passion”). Doublet of apatheia, which was borrowed directly from Ancient Greek.

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