empathy
n.-
1 drug name (n.) C2 Proficiency Slang Archaican old slang name for the drug MDMA.
a slang term for the drug MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine), referencing its empathogenic effects.
ExampleIn the early days of the club scene, some people referred to the drug as empathy.
ExampleThe term empathy was briefly used as a street name for MDMA in the 1980s before ecstasy became the dominant moniker.
Teacher's tipThis sense is largely obsolete and rarely encountered by modern speakers.
A twentieth-century borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια (empátheia, literally “passion”) (formed from ἐν (en, “in, at”) + πάθος (páthos, “feeling”)), equivalent to em- + -pathy, coined by Edward Bradford Titchener in 1909 to translate German Einfühlung. The modern word in Greek εμπάθεια (empátheia) has an opposite meaning denoting strong negative feelings and prejudice against someone.