apathy (n.) c.1600, “freedom from suffering,” from French apathie (16c.), from Latin apathia, from Greek apatheia ”freedom from suffering, impassability, want of sensation,” from apathes“without feeling, without suffering or having suffered,” from a- ”without” (see a- (3)) + pathos ”emotion, feeling, suffering” (see pathos). Originally a positive quality; sense of “indolence of mind, indifference to what should excite” is from c.1733.