"empath" as lexicographic lacuna

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

Y'all are looking in the wrong places. NOAD has had this from the beginning 
(2001):


em•path ... n. (chiefly in science fiction) a 
person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the 
mental or emotional state of another individual. 


In a message dated 11/24/08 11:08:44 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:


> Acrostic spoiler ahead...
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> Word P in yesterday's NYT Acrostic is clued as "One who knows how you
> feel", and I inferred  the correct answer, _EMPATH_, partly by virtue
> of an instance of synchronicity that points to an odd omission:  In
> _The Narrows_, a 2004 novel by Michael Connelly I'm currently
> reading, the term is applied to those FBI agents who take their cases
> personally.  I was curious about when the word was first attested,
> and to my surprise _empath_ is unlisted in either the (online) OED or
> AHD4, despite the fact that it has both a wikipedia entry (albeit
> largely devoted to the science-fiction ESP-y variety of empath as
> opposed to the more general sense invoked by Connelly's FBI agent and
> the Acrostic designers) and "about 730,000" raw g-hits for the word.
> 
> LH
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> 




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