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.
Entries linking to telepathy
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.
-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.).