ethos

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈiːθɒs/

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

• IPA^(key): /ˈiːθɑs/

Noun

ethos (plural ethe or ethea or ethoses)

1. The character or fundamental values of a person, people, culture, or movement.
   • 2021 March 10, Greg Morse, “Telling the railway's story on film”, in RAIL, number 926, page 49:

     As we saw with Housing Problems, this 'telling one's own story' is an ethos Edgar Anstey would have applauded, and it was an ethos that has fed into Network Rail's work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Green explains: "COVID has produced huge challenges for us, but it showed there is such a need for film-making at a time like this."

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. (aesthetic) 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.

Related terms

Terms etymologically related to ethos

• etheic
• ethics
• ethogram (zoölogy)
• ethography
• ethoi (hypercorrect)

• ethologic
• ethological
• ethologist
• ethology
• ethopœia

• ethopoetic (obsolete, rare)
• ethosed (rare, non-standard)
• ethoses (non-standard)

Translations

character or fundamental values of a people

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Catalan: ethos m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 精神 (zh) (jīngshén), 氣質／气质 (zh) (qìzhì), 气质 (zh) (qìzhì), 思潮 (zh) (sīcháo)

• Czech: étos (cs) m
• Esperanto: etoso
• Finnish: ilmapiiri (fi)
• French: éthos (fr) m
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Gesinnung (de) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Greek: ήθος (el) n (íthos)
• Hebrew: אתוס (he)
• Icelandic: andi (is) m
• Italian: please add this translation if you can
• Portuguese: ethos (pt) m
• Romanian: etos (ro) n
• Russian: этос (ru) (etos)
• Slovak: étos m
• Spanish: ethos (es) m
• Swedish: etos (sv) n, livssyn (sv) c

form of rhetoric

• Finnish: uskottavuudeen luominen, eetos (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

See also

• logos
• pathos
• zeitgeist

Anagrams

• Theos, shote, sothe, those

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Latin

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἦθος (êthos).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈeː.tʰos/, [ˈeːt̪ʰɔs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈe.tos/, [ˈɛːt̪os]

Noun

ēthos n (irregular, genitive ētheos); third 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.

Declension

Third-declension noun (irregular, Greek-type).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ēthos	ēthea ēthē
Genitive	ētheos	(ēthōn)
Dative	(ēthī)	ēthesi ēthesin
Accusative	ēthos	ēthea ēthē
Ablative	(ēthī)	ēthesi ēthesin
Vocative	ēthos	ēthea ēthē

References

• “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 with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 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)

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Portuguese

Noun

ethos m (invariable)

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

Related terms

• ética
• étnico