You searched for: “pathos”
bathos, pathos
bathos (BAY thos") (noun)
A sudden change in speech or a writing from what is a serious or important subject to one that is silly, ordinary, or disappointing; particularly when someone is striving for a much more serious effect: The important message of the film is ruined by the bathos of its ridiculous ending.

Clarice walked across the street, lifting her skirt to avoid the puddle, only to create a picture of bathos by stepping into the manure left by a passing horse.

pathos (PAY thos) (noun)
Something that genuinely evokes pity or sorrow: The people's knowledge of his tragic end adds an element of pathos to the story of his early success.

The stage play, based on the story of a farm boy, created a sense of pathos in the audience as they remembered their own experiences.

Because of the melodramatic bathos of the film, Shelby found it difficult to generate any genuine pathos for the main character.

This entry is located in the following unit: Confusing Words Clarified: Group B; Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs, Synonyms, Polysemes, etc. (page 3)
pathos (s) (noun), pathoses (pl)
A quality that arouses feelings of grief, sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow: Pathos and compassion have in common the idea of tender emotion that is caused by suffering or distress.

Pathos is a quality, as in literature and art, that arouses feelings of despondency or hopelessness.

Something or someone who arouses feelings of pity, sympathy, or compassion.
© ALL rights are reserved.

Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index
so you can see more of Mickey Bach's cartoons.

This entry is located in the following unit: path-, patho-, -path-, -pathia, -pathic, -pathology, -pathetic, -pathize, -pathy (page 21)
Word Entries at Get Words: “pathos”
pathos, pathoses
Certain things that are experienced or seen which create feelings of sorrow or sympathy and compassion. (1)
This entry is located in the following unit: Word a Day Revisited Index of Cartoons Illustrating the Meanings of Words (page 59)