πάθος

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /pá.tʰos/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈpa.θos/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈpa.θos/^[1]

Forms

πᾰ́θος (páthos) n (genitive πᾰ́θους or πᾰ́θεος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from παθ-, the zero grade of the root of πάσχω (páskhō, “to experience, suffer”), as in the aorist ἔπαθον.^[1][2][3] The verb keeps an old ablaut: zero grade in πάσχω (from *πάθ-σκ-ω) and παθεῖν, e-grade in πείσομαι (from *πένθ-σ-ομαι) and πένθος (pénthos, “grief”), o-grade in πέπονθα.^[3][4]

Its further origin is uncertain.^[3][4] It has long been connected with Lithuanian kę̃sti (“to suffer”) and Old Irish césaid (“suffers”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷendʰ-, as LIV still does; but such a root breaks the rules of Indo-European root structure.^[3][5][1] The alternative is the root *bʰendʰ- (“to bind”), with “to be bound” becoming “to suffer”, as Pedersen, Leumann and Janda proposed.^[3][4] Frisk found this formally close but difficult in meaning.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Aeschylus and Herodotus.^[6][7] Aeschylus' Agamemnon has πάθει μάθος, “learning through suffering”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Its basic sense is whatever happens to someone: Herodotus speaks of the “human things” that befall men, and it is an incident or an experience, good or bad.^[6][7] Plato and Aristotle oppose it to action, and Aristotle names characters, experiences and actions as what poetry imitates.^[6] Most often it is something bad, a misfortune or calamity, in Aeschylus, Herodotus and the orators.^[6][7]

In philosophy it became an emotion or passion of the soul: Democritus says that wisdom frees the soul from passions, Aristotle defines the passions as states attended by pleasure or pain, and Zeno the Stoic wrote a work On Passions.^[6] It could also be a state or condition, and a property of things as opposed to their essence.^[6][7] Grammarians used it for a change in the form of a word, and in rhetoric it was the emotional style that moves an audience.^[6]

The Septuagint has it for misfortune and for the passions, especially in 4 Maccabees.^[8] In the New Testament it is lustful passion, as in Paul's “dishonourable passions”, and Ignatius uses it for the suffering of Christ.^[9][10]

Medieval vernacular Greek used it for an unpleasant event, damage, a defect and, as a masculine, a disease.^[11] Modern Greek πάθος (páthos) is above all a passion, partly under the influence of French passion, and τα Πάθη are the Passion of Christ.^[12][2] English pathos is recorded from the 1660s.^[13]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus speaks of learning through suffering.^[6][14]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for a misfortune.^[6][14]
• 5th century BC – Democritus says wisdom frees the soul from passions.^[6][14]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle defines the passions by pleasure and pain.^[6][14]
• 1st century AD – Paul speaks of dishonourable passions.^[9]
• 2nd century AD – Ignatius uses it for the suffering of Christ.^[9]
• 1660s – English pathos is first recorded.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. What happens to one: an incident, an experience.^[6][7]
2. A misfortune, suffering, calamity.^[6][7]
3. A sensation, something undergone.^[7][6]
4. An emotion, a passion.^[6][7]
5. A state or condition.^[6][7]
6. (philosophy) A property of a thing, as opposed to its essence.^[6][7]
7. (grammar) A change in the form of a word.^[6]
8. (rhetoric) Emotional style.^[6]
9. (Koine) Lustful passion; in Christian writers, the suffering of Christ.^[9][10]

Word family

• ἀντιπαθής (antipathḗs)
• συμπαθής (sumpathḗs)
• προσπαθής (prospathḗs)
• πένθος (pénthos)
• ἀπάθεια (apátheia)
• συμπάθεια (sumpátheia)
• παθητικός (pathētikós)

Related words

• πάσχω (páskhō)
• English empathy
• English apathy

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
3. ^ a b c d e f Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ Rix, Helmut, et al. (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Reichert
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
9. ^ a b c d Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
10. ^ a b United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
11. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
12. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
13. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
14. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge