"pathetic fallacy" meaning in English

See pathetic fallacy in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: pathetic fallacies [plural]
Etymology: Coined by British cultural critic John Ruskin in 1856 in his work Modern Painters. Here, fallacy does not refer to a logical fallacy, but should be understood as “a falsehood, something that is untrue”, while pathetic here means “caused by an excited state of the feelings”; thus, "emotional misrepresentation", not "contemptible illogic". Etymology templates: {{coin|en|John Ruskin|in=1856|nat=British|nocat=1|occ=cultural critic}} Coined by British cultural critic John Ruskin in 1856, {{m|en|fallacy}} fallacy, {{m|en|pathetic}} pathetic Head templates: {{en-noun}} pathetic fallacy (plural pathetic fallacies)
  1. A metaphor which consists in treating inanimate objects or concepts as if they were human beings, for instance having thoughts or feelings. Wikipedia link: Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Modern Painters, pathetic fallacy Categories (topical): Figures of speech Related terms: personification, anthropomorphism, reification

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for pathetic fallacy meaning in English (2.6kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "John Ruskin",
        "in": "1856",
        "nat": "British",
        "nocat": "1",
        "occ": "cultural critic"
      },
      "expansion": "Coined by British cultural critic John Ruskin in 1856",
      "name": "coin"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fallacy"
      },
      "expansion": "fallacy",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "pathetic"
      },
      "expansion": "pathetic",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Coined by British cultural critic John Ruskin in 1856 in his work Modern Painters. Here, fallacy does not refer to a logical fallacy, but should be understood as “a falsehood, something that is untrue”, while pathetic here means “caused by an excited state of the feelings”; thus, \"emotional misrepresentation\", not \"contemptible illogic\".",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pathetic fallacies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "pathetic fallacy (plural pathetic fallacies)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Undetermined quotations with omitted translation",
          "parents": [
            "Quotations with omitted translation",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Figures of speech",
          "orig": "en:Figures of speech",
          "parents": [
            "Rhetoric",
            "Language",
            "Communication",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2022 June 14, Ian Bogost, “Google’s ‘Sentient’ Chatbot Is Our Self-Deceiving Future”, in The Atlantic",
          "text": "The next generation of AI will put the pathetic fallacy on steroids.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A metaphor which consists in treating inanimate objects or concepts as if they were human beings, for instance having thoughts or feelings."
      ],
      "id": "en-pathetic_fallacy-en-noun-zRaZ5iiK",
      "links": [
        [
          "metaphor",
          "metaphor"
        ],
        [
          "consist",
          "consist"
        ],
        [
          "inanimate",
          "inanimate"
        ],
        [
          "human",
          "human"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "personification"
        },
        {
          "word": "anthropomorphism"
        },
        {
          "word": "reification"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Charlotte Brontë",
        "Jane Eyre",
        "Modern Painters",
        "pathetic fallacy"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "pathetic fallacy"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "John Ruskin",
        "in": "1856",
        "nat": "British",
        "nocat": "1",
        "occ": "cultural critic"
      },
      "expansion": "Coined by British cultural critic John Ruskin in 1856",
      "name": "coin"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fallacy"
      },
      "expansion": "fallacy",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "pathetic"
      },
      "expansion": "pathetic",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Coined by British cultural critic John Ruskin in 1856 in his work Modern Painters. Here, fallacy does not refer to a logical fallacy, but should be understood as “a falsehood, something that is untrue”, while pathetic here means “caused by an excited state of the feelings”; thus, \"emotional misrepresentation\", not \"contemptible illogic\".",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pathetic fallacies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "pathetic fallacy (plural pathetic fallacies)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "personification"
    },
    {
      "word": "anthropomorphism"
    },
    {
      "word": "reification"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Undetermined quotations with omitted translation",
        "Undetermined terms with quotations",
        "en:Figures of speech"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2022 June 14, Ian Bogost, “Google’s ‘Sentient’ Chatbot Is Our Self-Deceiving Future”, in The Atlantic",
          "text": "The next generation of AI will put the pathetic fallacy on steroids.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A metaphor which consists in treating inanimate objects or concepts as if they were human beings, for instance having thoughts or feelings."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "metaphor",
          "metaphor"
        ],
        [
          "consist",
          "consist"
        ],
        [
          "inanimate",
          "inanimate"
        ],
        [
          "human",
          "human"
        ]
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Charlotte Brontë",
        "Jane Eyre",
        "Modern Painters",
        "pathetic fallacy"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "pathetic fallacy"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (a644e18 and edd475d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.