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ethos

UK/ˈiːθɒs/US/ˈiθɑs/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,464 of 15,258leans written

Ethos is the spirit and values that mark a community. The school's ethos, a work ethos, an ethos of service.

In rhetoric it is one of the three appeals beside pathos and logos, and it means persuading by the speaker's own character. In ordinary use it names what an institution is like to be inside rather than what it says it is.

Definitions of ethos

  1. 1nounethosThe spirit and values that mark a community.C2

    “The school's ethos is built on kindness, hard work and respect for others.”

ethos is a spirit.

Remember it

The Greek is habit and character: what a group does so often that it stops noticing. The ethos of a place is its habit of mind.

hooks ontohabit

Where it comes from

Greek ethos means character, custom or habit, and is the same root that gives ethics and ethical.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *dʰeh₁-

  2. Ancient Greek

    ἦθος — character; custom, habit

  3. English, today

    ethos

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

ethos in the wild

  • In fact, the speaker's ethos is a rhetorical strategy employed by an orator whose purpose is to "inspire trust in his audience".

    Credibility

  • Pathos is most often used in rhetoric, in which it is considered one of the three modes of persuasion, alongside ethos and logos.

    Pathos

  • The publication got its name from the word "ethos", the fundamental characteristic of a spirit, people or culture.

    Ethos Magazine

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.