Term: telepathy (n.)

1882, coined (along with telæsthesia) by English psychologist Frederic Myers, literally “feeling from afar,” from tele– + -pathy. The noun telepath is an 1889 back-formation.

tele-

before vowels tel-, word-forming element meaning “far, far off, operating over distance” (also, since c. 1940, “television”), from Greek tele “far off, afar, at or to a distance,” related to teleos (genitive telos) “end, goal, completion, result,” from PIE root *kwel– (2) “far” in space or time.

Entries linking to tele-

Proto-Indo-European root meaning “far” (in space or time). Some sources connect this root with kwel– (1), forming words to do with turning, via the notion of “completion of a cycle.”

*kwel- (2)

It forms all or part of: paleo-; tele-; teleconference; telegony; telegraph; telegram; telekinesis; Telemachus; telemeter; telepathy; telephone; telescope; television.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit caramah “the last;” Greek tele “far off, afar, at or to a distance,” palaios “old, ancient,” palai “long ago, far back;” Breton pell “far off,” Welsh pellaf”uttermost.”

pathy

word-forming element meaning “feeling, suffering, emotion; disorder, disease,” from Latin -pathia, from Greek -patheia “act of suffering, feeling” (from PIE root *kwent(h)-“to suffer”). Meaning “system of treatment of disease, method, cure, curative treatment” is abstracted from homeopathy (q.v.).

Entries linking to -pathy

*kwent(h)-

Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to suffer.”

It forms all or part of: anthropopathy; antipathy; apathy; empathy; idiopathy; nepenthe; osteopathy; -path; pathetic; -pathic; patho-; pathogenic; pathognomonic; pathology; pathos; -pathy; psychopathic; sympathy.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Greek pathos “suffering, feeling, emotion, calamity,” penthos “grief, sorrow;” Old Irish cessaim “I suffer;” Lithuanian kenčiu, kentėti “to suffer,” pakanta”patience.”

homeopathy (n.)

1830, from German Homöopathie, coined 1824 by German physician Samuel Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843) from Greek homoios “like, similar, of the same kind” (see homeo–) + -patheia “disease,” also “feeling, emotion” (see –pathy). Greek homoiopathes meant “having like feelings or affections, sympathetic.”