word-forming element used in modern formations to mean "one suffering from" (a disease or condition), from Greek pathos "suffering" (from PIE root *kwent(h)- "to suffer"). Also "one versed in" (a certain type of treatment), in which cases it is a back-formation from -pathy in the related sense.
Entries linking to -path
*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."
-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.).