noun 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.
noun A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker uses emotional appeals to the audience as the main form of persuasion.
noun An author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
noun 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.
noun Suffering; the enduring of active stress or affliction.