Pity vs Pathos - What's the difference?
pity | pathos |
(uncountable) A feeling of sympathy at the misfortune or suffering of someone or something.
* Bible, Proverbs xix. 17
* Shakespeare
*, Folio Society, 2006, p.5:
(countable) Something regrettable.
* Laurence Sterne
* Addison
(obsolete) piety
To feel pity for (someone or something).
* Bible, Psalms ciii. 13
* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , IV.11:
* Book of Common Prayer
Short form of what a pity.
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.
* 1874 , Thomas Hardy, Far From The Madding Crowd, 1874:
(rhetoric) A writer or speaker's attempt to persuade an audience through appeals involving the use of strong emotions such as pity.
(literature) An author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
(theology, philosophy) 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.
As nouns the difference between pity and pathos
is that pity is a feeling of sympathy at the misfortune or suffering of someone or something while pathos is 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.As a verb pity
is to feel pity for (someone or something).As an interjection pity
is short form of what a pity.pity
English
Alternative forms
* pitty (obsolete)Noun
- He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.
- Hehas no more pity in him than a dog.
- The most usuall way to appease those minds we have offendedis, by submission to move them to commiseration and pitty .
- It's a pity you're feeling unwell because there's a party on tonight.
- It was a thousand pities .
- What pity is it / That we can die but once to serve our country!
- (Wyclif)
Synonyms
* (mercy) ruth * (something regrettable) shameVerb
(en-verb)- Like as a father pitieth' his children, so the Lord ' pitieth them that fear him.
- She lenger yet is like captiv'd to bee; / That even to thinke thereof it inly pitties mee.
- It pitieth them to see her in the dust.
Interjection
Synonyms
* shame, what a pity, what a shameDerived terms
* piteous * pitiable * pitiful * self-pity * what a pity ----pathos
English
Noun
- His voice had a genuine pathos now, and his large brown hands perceptibly trembled.
