ethe
/ˈiːθiː/
ethe is the plural of ethos.
Meaning of ethos
Noun
ethos (plural ethe or ethea or ethoses)
- The character or fundamental values of a person, people, culture, or movement.
- To slip past censors, Chinese bloggers have become masters of comic subterfuge, cloaking their messages in protective layers of irony and satire. This is not a new concept, but it has erupted so powerfully that it now defines the ethos of the Internet in China.2011 October 26, Brook Larmer, “Where an Internet Joke Is Not Just a Joke”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- 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.
- 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 emotional situations or individual character traits in a narrow sense; opposed to pathos.
Adjective
ethe (comparative more ethe, superlative most ethe)
- easy
- Hereto, the hilles bene nigher heaven, / And thence the passage ethe; / As well can proove the piercing levin, / That seldome falles beneath.1579, Edmund Spenser, “The Shepheardes Calender”, in The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 4, Charles C. Little and James Brown, published 1839, page 330
Forms of ethe
| comparative | more ethe |
|---|---|
| superlative | most ethe |
Origin of ethe
From the Ancient Greek ἤθη (ḗthē), the contracted nominative plural form of ἦθος (êthos).
See eath.
Questions about ethe
- What does ethe mean?
- Ethe means easy.
- What is ethe the plural of?
- Ethe is the plural of ethos.
- What part of speech is ethe?
- Ethe is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce ethe?
- Ethe is pronounced /ˈiːθiː/.
Words near ethe in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ethe (page history and authors); ethos (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “ethe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ethe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.