Thankful appreciation for a benefit, kindness, or favor received..
Thankful appreciation for a benefit, kindness, or favor received.
Unlike the empathy/sympathy/compassion cluster (responses to another's suffering), gratitude is a positive, appreciative emotion directed at a benefit received — it presupposes that someone or something has done one good, and is often felt toward a giver. “Thanks” is more the outward expression; “appreciation” can be cognitive and need no benefactor; gratitude specifically pairs the warm feeling with awareness of having been benefited. Somewhat formal and elevated relative to plain “thanks.”
Mid-15c., originally “good will,” from Medieval Latin gratitudo “thankfulness,” from Latin gratus “thankful, pleasing,” from PIE *gwere- “to favor.” Kin to grace, gratis, gratuity.
Entered English meaning “good will”; the sense “thankfulness” is attested from the 1560s — an early narrowing that has been the stable meaning since. No reliable recent-generation shift.