Definition of: pathos

(pā′thos) noun
1. The quality, attribute, or element, in events, speech, or art, that rouses emotion or passion, especially the tender emotions, as compassion or sympathy; also, tender or sorrowful feeling.
2. In art, the quality of the contingent and evanescent phenomena of life, as the facts of personality, individuality, human passion, or emotion, that the artist's conception embodies or concretely expresses: opposed to the quality of the ideal or ethos.
3. Obs. Suffering. See synonyms under FEELING. [<Gk., suffering <path-, stem of paschein suffer]