pathos means 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. It carries an Arena rating of 2028, earned across 63 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, pathos ranks #26 of 42,749 for Qualifying, #321 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #608 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #995 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
pathos is pronounced /ˈpeɪˌθɒs/.
Why “pathos” is a great word
The quality in speech, writing, or art that evokes feelings of pity, sympathy, or sorrow in an audience. From the Ancient Greek πάθος (páthos, "suffering, experience, emotion"). Unlike "bathos" (the unintended tumble from the sublime to the ridiculous) or "ethos" (the appeal to character), pathos is the targeted appeal to shared human feeling. It is the tremble in a speaker's voice as he describes a final farewell, the water-stained and half-finished letter from a soldier's hand, the single sustained note of a violin that outlasts the orchestra's rest—the moment sorrow is not performed but passed, hand to hand, like a warmed teacup in a cold room.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek πάθος (páthos, “suffering”).
noun
- 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.e.g.“His voice had a genuine pathos now, and his large brown hands perceptibly trembled.” — 1874, Thomas Hardy, Far From The Madding Crowd:
- A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker uses emotional appeals to the audience as the main form of persuasion.e.g.“It was impossible to endure the jargon and the affected pathos of the squire any longer.” — 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 250:
- An author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
- 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.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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