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''pathos'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''pathos'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904152658-00-⌔

pathos - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

pathos (countable and uncountable, plural pathoses)

  • The quality or property of anything which touches the feelings or excites emotions and passions, especially that which awakens tender emotions, such as pity, sorrow, and the like; contagious warmth of feeling, action, or expression; pathetic quality.
    • ✤ Synonym: patheticness
    • ✤ His voice had a genuine pathos now, and his large brown hands perceptibly trembled.1
    • ✤ She could not see, for her whitish eyes were covered with a horny film. Oh, the horrible pathos of the sight! But she could still speak.2
    • ✤ Pritchard-McLean’s show is perfectly constructed, and at times deeply moving to the point where some audience members were near tears, yet the pathos is undercut by true belly laughs – but don’t trust me, read the reviews.3
  • (rhetoric) A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker uses emotional appeals to the audience as the main form of persuasion.
    • ✤ Coordinate terms: ethos, logos
    • ✤ It was impossible to endure the jargon and the affected pathos of the squire any longer.4
  • (literature) An author’s attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
  • (theology, philosophy) In theology and existentialist ethics following Kierkegaard and Heidegger, a deep and abiding commitment of the heart, as in the notion of “finding your passion” as an important aspect of a fully lived, engaged life.
  • Suffering; the enduring of active stress or affliction.

Etymology

From Ancient Greek πάθος (páthos, “suffering”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ˈpeɪˌθɒs/, /ˈpɑːθɒs/, (spelling pronunciation)/ˈpæθɒs/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (US) IPA: /ˈpeɪˌθɑs/, /ˈpeɪˌθɔs/, /ˈpeɪˌθoʊs/, /ˈpæˌθoʊs/

Printed 2026-09-04.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1874, Thomas Hardy, Far From The Madding Crowd: ↩

  2. 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 20 August 2018, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett in The Guardian, Young women are smashing it at Edinburgh as the metoo legacy kicks in ↩

  4. 1886, Peter Christen Asbj&oslash￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 250: ↩

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Secondary

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