ethos
/ˈiːθɒs/US/ˈiθɑs/
ethos noun: the character or fundamental values of a person, people, culture, or movement.
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
- As we saw with Housing Problems, this 'telling one's own story' is an ethos Edgar Anstey would have applauded, and it was an ethos that has fed into Network Rail's work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Green explains: "COVID has produced huge challenges for us, but it showed there is such a need for...2021 March 10, Greg Morse, “Telling the railway's story on film”, in RAIL, number 926, page 49
- 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.
ethos meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
ethos in Hindi
- ethos, spirit
- लोकाचार lokācār
ethos in Tamil
- இனப்பண்பு, தனிப்பண்பமைதி, பண்பாண்மை
ethos in Urdu
- ایتھوس
ethos in Bengali
- মূল বৈশিষ্ট্য, চেতনা, কোনো সমাজ, সংস্কৃতির চারিত্রিক বৈশিষ্ট্য
More languagesFewer languages
- ethos in Telugu
- ఎథోస్
- ethos in Malayalam
- മനോഭാവം, പ്രകൃതം, മുഖപ്രകൃതി, സത്ത
- ethos in Kannada
- ವಿಶಿಷ್ಟ ಲಕ್ಷಣ, ಮೌಲ್ಯಸಂಚಯ
- ethos in Indonesian
- etos
Examples of ethos in a sentence
- As we saw with Housing Problems, this 'telling one's own story' is an ethos Edgar Anstey would have applauded, and it was an ethos that has fed into Network Rail's work during the COVID-19 pandemic.2021 March 10, Greg Morse, “Telling the railway's story on film”, in RAIL, number 926, page 49:
- Through all their projects, their abiding ethos has been observing and responding to the site and its existing ecology and growth patterns.2026 May, Cyrus Dunham, “Nature's Way”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 106:
Forms of ethos
| plural | ethe |
|---|---|
| plural | ethea |
| plural | ethoses |
Origin of ethos
From Ancient Greek ἦθος (êthos, “character; custom, habit”). Cognate to Sanskrit स्वधा (svadhā́, “habit, custom”).
Questions about ethos
- What does ethos mean?
- Ethos means the character or fundamental values of a person, people, culture, or movement.
- What is ethos in Hindi?
- Ethos in Hindi is लोकाचार (lokācār). See Ethos meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use ethos in a sentence?
- As we saw with Housing Problems, this 'telling one's own story' is an ethos Edgar Anstey would have applauded, and it was an ethos that has fed into Network Rail's work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- What part of speech is ethos?
- Ethos is a noun.
- How do you pronounce ethos?
- Ethos is pronounced /ˈiːθɒs/ (UK).
- What is the plural of ethos?
- The plural of ethos is ethe.
Words near ethos in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ethos (page history and authors); लोकाचार (Hindi) (page history and authors); ethos (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ethos (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); Ethos (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ethos (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ethos (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); ethos (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ethos.wav.
Cite this entry: “ethos.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ethos. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.