ethos means The character or fundamental values of a person, people, culture, or movement. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 77 out of 100.
Why this word is great
ETHOS — [Noun] The characteristic spirit, fundamental values, or guiding beliefs of a person, culture, or group. From Ancient Greek ἦθος (êthos, "character, custom, habit"), it signifies the unspoken constitution from which actions spring. Unlike pathos (which sways by transient emotion) or ethics (which codifies conduct in formal rules), ethos is the persuasive whisper of an accumulated character. It is the worn ledger of a family shop implying honesty, the collective silence in a library reading room, and the particular wear on the tools of a master craftsman—the silent architecture of credibility, more felt than stated, upon which all persuasion ultimately rests.
noun
- The character or fundamental values of a person, people, culture, or movement.“To slip past censors, Chinese bloggers have become masters of comic subterfuge, cloaking their messages in protective layers of irony and satire. This is not a new concept, but it has erupted so powerfully that it now defines the ethos of the Internet in China.”
- A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker invokes their authority, competence or expertise in an attempt to persuade others that their view is correct.
- The traits in a work of art which express the ideal or typic character, as influenced by the ethos (character or fundamental values) of a people, rather than emotional situations or individual character traits in a narrow sense; opposed to pathos.