Pathos

Quick meaning: Pathos is a noun meaning (rhetoric) A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker uses emotional appeals to the audience as the main form of persuasion.

Meaning

(rhetoric) A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker uses emotional appeals to the audience as the main form of persuasion.

More Meanings

1. (literature) An author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
2. Suffering; the enduring of active stress or affliction.
3. 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.
4. (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.

Example Sentences

His voice had a genuine pathos now, and his large brown hands perceptibly trembled.

It was impossible to endure the jargon and the affected pathos of the squire any longer.

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.

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

Word Forms

• pathoses

Synonyms for pathos

Depending on context, synonyms include patheticness, pity, commiseration, poignancy, ruth.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include commiseration, pity, ruth, poignancy, compassion, ducks.

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