path

The root path is one of those rare cases where Greek and Latin are really two children of the same parent. Far back in Indo-European there was a root meaning roughly 'to undergo, to be affected, to suffer.' Greek turned it into pathos — what you feel, what happens to you, what you suffer. Latin turned the very same idea into the verb patī — to bear, to endure, to put up with. So when you study path words, you are watching one ancient idea split into two languages and then both flow into English.

The Greek branch: pathos = what you feel. Greek gave English a family built on emotion, and the prefix tells you the direction of the feeling:

- syn- (together) + pathos → sympathy: feeling together with someone — you feel sorry for what they go through.
- en-/em- (into) + pathos → empathy: feeling your way into someone — you don't just pity them, you imagine being them.
- a- (without) + pathos → apathy: no feeling — indifference.
- anti- (against) + pathos → antipathy: feeling against — instinctive dislike.
- alone, pathos is the quality in art or speech that makes an audience feel pity or sorrow.

The same Greek root also became the standard word-part for disease — because in the ancient mind, a disease was literally something the body suffers or undergoes. So patho- = disease: pathology (the study of disease), pathogen (something that produces disease, with gen = produce). And -path / -pathy at the end of a word names a sufferer or a condition of the mind: psychopath (a diseased mind), sociopath, telepathy (feeling across a distance, with tele = far).

The Latin branch: patī = to bear it. The Latin verb survives in English mostly through two spellings, pat- and pass-:

- patient: literally 'the one who suffers / endures.' This single word split into the two meanings English keeps today — a patient in a hospital (someone undergoing illness and treatment) and being patient (calmly enduring a wait). Same idea: putting up with something.
- passion: from Latin passiō, 'suffering.' It first meant the suffering of Christ (the Passion). Strong suffering became strong feeling in general, and the word slid from pain to intense love, anger, or enthusiasm.
- com- (together) + patī → compassion: literally 'suffering with' someone — the exact Latin twin of the Greek-built sympathy.
- com- + patī also gave compatible: things that can 'bear with' each other, get along, coexist.
- passive: in a state of being acted upon rather than acting — you undergo, you don't initiate.
- im- (not) + passive → impassive: showing no feeling, unmoved.

The pattern. Whether the word looks Greek (-pathy, patho-) or Latin (pat-, pass-), the core never changes: it is about feeling something or undergoing something. Sympathy and compassion are even built the same way in the two languages — 'feeling-with' in Greek, 'suffering-with' in Latin.

One warning about a look-alike: the everyday English word path (a trail or footway) is not related at all — it comes from Germanic and just happens to be spelled the same. A garden path has nothing to do with feeling or suffering.