Adjacent Words

Pathos definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PA'THOS, n. [Gr. to suffer.] Passion; warmth or vehemence, in a speaker; or in language, that which excites emotions and passions.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a quality that arouses emotions (especially pity or sorrow); "the film captured all the pathos of their situation" [syn: pathos, poignancy]
2: a feeling of sympathy and sorrow for the misfortunes of others; "the blind are too often objects of pity" [syn: commiseration, pity, ruth, pathos]
3: a style that has the power to evoke feelings

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: Greek, suffering, experience, emotion, from paschein (aorist pathein) to experience, suffer; perhaps akin to Lithuanian k?sti to suffer Date: 1591 1. an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion 2. an emotion of sympathetic pity

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. a quality in speech, writing, events, etc., that excites pity or sadness. Etymology: Gk pathos suffering, rel. to paskho suffer, penthos grief

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Pathos Pa"thos, n. 1. The quality or character of those emotions, traits, or experiences which are personal, and therefore restricted and evanescent; transitory and idiosyncratic dispositions or feelings as distinguished from those which are universal and deep-seated in character; -- opposed to ethos. 2. Suffering; the enduring of active stress or affliction.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Pathos Pa"thos, n. [L., from Gr. pa`qos a suffering, passion, fr. ?, ?, to suffer; cf. ? toil, L. pati to suffer, E. patient.] That quality or property of anything which touches the feelings or excites emotions and passions, esp., that which awakens tender emotions, such as pity, sorrow, and the like; contagious warmth of feeling, action, or expression; pathetic quality; as, the pathos of a picture, of a poem, or of a cry. The combination of incident, and the pathos of catastrophe. --T. Warton.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Pathos is a quality in a situation, film, or play that makes people feel sadness and pity. ...the pathos of man's isolation...

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Passion, warmth of feeling, tender emotion. 2. Pathetic quality, tender tone, patheticalness.

Moby Thesaurus

bathos, benevolence, bitterness, bleakness, caring, cheerlessness, chord, clemency, comfortlessness, commiseration, compassion, concern, condolence, depression, discomfort, dismalness, distress, distressfulness, dreariness, echo, empathy, favor, feeling, fellow feeling, forbearance, forgiveness, grace, grief, grievousness, heaviness, heaviness of heart, heavy heart, heavyheartedness, humanity, identification, involvement, joylessness, kindness, lamentability, lamentation, leniency, mercy, mitigation, mournfulness, pain, painfulness, pardon, pitiability, pitiableness, pitifulness, pity, poignancy, quarter, regrettableness, relating, relief, reprieve, response, responsiveness, ruth, sadheartedness, sadness, self-pity, sharing, sharpness, sorrowfulness, sympathetic chord, sympathetic response, sympathy, vibes, vibrations, woebegoneness, woefulness