pathos

plural pathoses

1. countableuncountableThe 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.

   1874, Thomas Hardy, Far From The Madding Crowd

   2 more examples

   She could not see, for her whitish eyes were covered with a horny film. Oh, the horrible pathos of the sight! But she could still speak.

   1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

   20 August 2018, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett in The Guardian, Young women are smashing it at Edinburgh as the #MeToo legacy kicks in Pritchard-McLean’s show is perfectly constructed, and at times deeply moving to the point where some audience members were near tears, yet the pathos is undercut by true belly laughs – but don’t trust me, read the reviews.

   Synonyms: patheticness

2. countablerhetoricuncountableA 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.

   1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 250

3. countableuncountableliteratureAn author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
4. countableuncountablehuman sciencesIn 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. countableuncountableSuffering; the enduring of active stress or affliction.