Meanings
plural pathetic fallacies
- artThe attribution of human thoughts and feelings to inanimate objects.
The next generation of AI will put the pathetic fallacy on steroids.
2022 June 14, Ian Bogost, “Google’s ‘Sentient’ Chatbot Is Our Self-Deceiving Future”, in The Atlantic1 more example
Taking, therefore, this wide field, it is surely a very notable circumstance, to begin with, that this pathetic fallacy is eminently characteristic of modern painting. For instance, Keats, describing a wave, breaking, out at sea, says of it Down whose green back the short-lived foam, all hoar, Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence.
1856, John Ruskin, chapter XII, in Modern Painters […], volume III, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, part IV (Of Many Things), § 2, page 184
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
Coined by British cultural critic John Ruskin in 1856 in his work Modern Painters. Here, fallacy does not refer to a logical fallacy but should be understood as “a falsehood, something that is untrue”, while pathetic here means “caused by an excited state of the feelings”; thus, “emotional misrepresentation”, not “contemptible illogic”.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
pathetic fallacy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pathetic%20fallacy
“pathetic fallacy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pathetic%20fallacy. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pathetic fallacy,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pathetic%20fallacy.
Source: pathetic fallacy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.