Pathos

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Pathos \Pa"thos\ (p[=a]"th[o^]s), n. [L., from Gr. pa`qos a
     suffering, passion, fr. paqei^n, pas`chein, to suffer; cf.
     po`nos 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.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           The combination of incident, and the pathos of
           catastrophe.                             --T. Warton.
     [1913 Webster]
  
     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}.
        [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
  
     2. Suffering; the enduring of active stress or affliction.
        [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  pathos
       n 1: a quality that arouses emotions (especially pity or sorrow);
            "the film captured all the pathos of their situation"
            [syn: {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}]
       3: a style that has the power to evoke feelings

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  73 Moby Thesaurus words for "pathos":
     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