First Known Use: 1591
Dictionary
pathos
noun pa·thos \ˈpā-ˌthäs, -ˌthȯs, -ˌthōs also ˈpa-\
: a quality that causes people to feel sympathy and sadness
Full Definition of PATHOS
1
: an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion
2
: an emotion of sympathetic pity
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Examples of PATHOS
- There is a pathos to the deflated certainties that left the Washington lawyer Leonard Garment weeping, inconsolable, outside the Senate chamber as the debate was ended. —Garry Wills, New York Times Book Review, 10 Sept. 1989
- The struggle back to solvency was arduous, and the stubborn determination and reserves of strength that it called forth from him in his mid-forties made him all at once a figure of considerable pathos and heroism in my eyes, a cross of a kind between Captain Ahab and Willy Loman. —Philip Roth, Reading Myself and Others, (1961) 1975
- Many schools at the end of the Depression were poor, but the threadbare nature of Christchurch was almost Dickensian in its pathos. —William Styron, This Quiet Dust and Other Writings, (1953) 1982
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Origin of PATHOS
Greek, suffering, experience, emotion, from paschein (aor. pathein) to experience, suffer; perhaps akin to Lithuanian kęsti to suffer
Other Literature Terms
Rhymes with PATHOS
bathos, benthos, bugloss, chaos, Chios, cosmos, Delos, demos, Ellás, emboss, en masse, Eos, epos, Eros, ethos, Hyksos, kaross, kudos, kvass, Lagos, Laos, Laplace, Lemnos, Lesbos, Logos, Madras, Melos, mythos, Naxos, Nepos, nol-pros, nonpros, peplos, Pharos, pit boss, pothos, ringtoss, Samos, Skyros, straw boss, telos, topos, tripos
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