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. -path, -pathia .
[ comb. form repr. Gk pátheia suffering, feeling, equiv. to páth ( os ) PATHOS + -eia -Y 3 ]