pathos

noun pathoses

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

   Similar: patheticness

2. countable, rhetoric, uncountable A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker uses emotional appeals to the audience as the main form of persuasion. It was impossible to endure the jargon and the affected pathos of the squire any longer.
3. countable, uncountable An author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
4. countable, uncountable 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.
5. countable, uncountable Suffering; the enduring of active stress or affliction.