pathos
/ˈpeɪˌθɑs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.83 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
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.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker uses emotional appeals to the audience as the main form of persuasion.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
An author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "His voice had a genuine pathos now, and his large brown hands perceptibly trembled."
- "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."
- "It was impossible to endure the jargon and the affected pathos of the squire any longer."
Etymology
From Ancient Greek πάθος (páthos, “suffering”).
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈpeɪˌθɑs/
- British English: /ˈpeɪˌθɒs/