pathos

noun5

1. •
   The quality or property of anything which touches the feelings or excites emotions and passions, especially that which awakens tender emotions, such as pity, sorrow, and the like; contagious warmth of feeling, action, or expression; pathetic quality.

   • 20 August 2018, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett in The Guardian, Young women are smashing it at Edinburgh as the #MeToo legacy kicks in Pritchard-McLean’s show is perfectly constructed, and at times deeply moving to the point where some audience members were near tears, yet the pathos is undercut by true belly laughs – but don’t trust me, read the reviews.
2. •
   An author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
3. •
   (rhetoric) A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker uses emotional appeals to the audience as the main form of persuasion.

   • It was impossible to endure the jargon and the affected pathos of the squire any longer. — 1886
4. •
   Suffering; the enduring of active stress or affliction.
5. •
   In theology and existentialist ethics following Kierkegaard and Heidegger, a deep and abiding commitment of the heart, as in the notion of "finding your passion" as an important aspect of a fully lived, engaged life.