-pathy: Meaning and Definition of

-pathy

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. a combining form occurring in loanwords from Greek, where it meant “suffering,” “feeling” (antipathy; sympathy); in compound words of modern formation, often used with the meaning “morbid affection,” “disease” (arthropathy; deuteropathy; neuropathy; psychopathy), and hence used also in names of systems or methods of treating disease (allopathy; homeopathy; hydropathy; osteopathy). Cf.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.