From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpathospa‧thos /ˈpeɪθɒs $ -θɑːs/ noun [uncountable] SYMPATHIZEthe quality that a person, situation, film, or play has that makes you feel pity and sadness the pathos of the woman trying to keep her lover
Examples from the Corpus
pathos• The opera's mixture of comedy, pathos, and desire will break your heart.• The concentrated pathos of her narration, and the clarity with which she conveys its crippling effects on Blanche, is breathtaking.• Adjani is unrivalled when it comes to expressing violent pain without lapsing into pathos.• It was a venue of pathos and prayers, a wretched place for passengers concerned with their welfare.• Drenched in the pathos and the rhythms of the blues, this wonderful production is at once mournful and exuberant.• But Phillips' gift is in deftly leavening bathos with pathos.Origin pathos (1500-1600) Greek “suffering, feeling, disease”, from paschein; → PATHETIC 