ethos

From Ancient Greek ἦθος (êthos, “character; custom, habit”). Cognate to Sanskrit स्वधा (svádhā, “habit, custom”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈiːθɒs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈiːθoʊs/

ethos (plural ethe or ethea or ethoses)

1. The character or fundamental values of a person, people, culture, or movement.
2. (rhetoric) A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker invokes their authority, competence or expertise in an attempt to persuade others that their view is correct.
3. (aesthetics) The traits in a work of art which express the ideal or typic character, as influenced by the ethos (character or fundamental values) of a people, rather than realistic or emotional situations or individual character in a narrow sense; opposed to pathos.

• logos
• pathos
• zeitgeist

• Theos, shote, sothe, those

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἦθος (êthos).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈeː.tʰos/, [ˈeː.tʰɔs]

ēthos n (genitive ētheos); irregular declension

1. Synonym of mōrēs
2. (drama) character
   • (Can we find and add a quotation of Marcus Terentius Varro to this entry?)
   • 77 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia 35.98:

     Is omnium prīmus animum pīnxit et sēnsūs hominis expressit, quae vocant Graecī ēthē, item perturbātiōnēs, dūrior paulō in colōribus.

     He [viz. Aristides of Thebes] was the first of all painters who depicted the mind and expressed the feelings of a human being, what the Greeks term ethe, and also the emotions; he was a little too hard in his colours.

Irregular (only some forms are attested, all of which follow the Greek)

• ēthos in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ethos in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• ēthŏs in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette, page 604/1
• “ēthos” on page 623/1 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1st ed., 1968–82)

ethos m (plural ethos)

1. (aesthetics) ethos (the character or fundamental values of a person, people, culture or movement)

• ética
• étnico