Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The disposition, character, or fundamental values peculiar to a specific person, people, culture, or movement.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Habitual character and disposition.
- noun Specifically In the Gr. fine arts, etc., the inherent quality of a work which produces, or is fitted to produce, a high moral impression, noble, dignified, and universal, as opposed to a work characterized by pathos, or the particular, accidental, passionate, realistic quality.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The character, sentiment, or disposition of a community or people, considered as a natural endowment; the spirit which actuates manners and customs; also, the characteristic tone or genius of an institution or social organization.
- noun (Æsthetics) The traits in a work of art which express the ideal or typic character -- character as influenced by the
ethos (sense 1) of a people -- rather than realistic or emotional situations or individual character in a narrow sense; -- opposed topathos .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
character orfundamental values of aperson ,people ,culture , ormovement .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (anthropology) the distinctive spirit of a culture or an era
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It's such a relaxed and friendly place and the ethos is all part of that. quintessentiallysoho. comThis is
The members' club that serves up help for homeless people Alison Benjamin 2010
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This is a story of inclusion and change, a movement from what he calls ethos (custom) to ta ethne (the nations).
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Their ethos is linked to that of New York's Editions: Artists 'Book Fair, whose focus on new editions, young artists and young galleries, "I was hoping to reproduce that back in London" explains Richard Lloyd, Christie's International Head of the Print Department.
Constantin Bjerke: Roll Over Frieze - Multiplied Contemporary Editions Fair at Christie's Constantin Bjerke 2010
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And what ethos is it that prevents the public from knowing which public servants represented unlawful combatants?
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Fundamentalism, as one of the chief protests against this modern ethos, is not likely to disappear.
A Conversation with Karen Armstrong, author of The Battle for God 2010
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Their ethos is linked to that of New York's Editions: Artists 'Book Fair, whose focus on new editions, young artists and young galleries, "I was hoping to reproduce that back in London" explains Richard Lloyd, Christie's International Head of the Print Department.
Constantin Bjerke: Roll Over Frieze - Multiplied Contemporary Editions Fair at Christie's Constantin Bjerke 2010
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Our child-porn loving heroes get all upset when that ethos is turned on its head - i.e. an assault by one police officer is an assault by any police officer.
Checkmate Dungeekin 2009
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John: And what ethos is it that prevents the public from knowing which public servants represented unlawful combatants?
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Their ethos is linked to that of New York's Editions: Artists 'Book Fair, whose focus on new editions, young artists and young galleries, "I was hoping to reproduce that back in London" explains Richard Lloyd, Christie's International Head of the Print Department.
Constantin Bjerke: Roll Over Frieze - Multiplied Contemporary Editions Fair at Christie's Constantin Bjerke 2010
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I think your explanation regarding the American ethos is far more accurate than arguing that American industry was founded on a Taylor model.
andrew.simone commented on the word ethos
'I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.'
December 8, 2006
qroqqa commented on the word ethos
I am always confused over whether I should be pronouncing this /ˈeθɒs/ (as in ethics) or /ˈiːθɒs/ (as in ether). Whenever I look it up I am confused by the fact that there are two related Greek words εθος ethos and ηθος êthos, and that though ethics comes from the latter it is invariably pronounced with short E.
So εθος ethos meant "custom, habit" but did not really give any English derivatives. The related word ηθος êthos is more complex, giving all of English ethos, ethics, ethology. In the singular its meanings extend to "character, nature", basically what ethos is and what ethics and in part ethology study; in the plural (ηθη êthê) it means "haunts, abodes" of animals and "manners, customs" of people.
Unrelated are short-E ethno- "people" and long-E (in fact AE, Greek αι-) ether, aether "airlike substance/realm".
June 4, 2009
jwjarvis commented on the word ethos
the internal executive ethos
December 4, 2010