pathos

noun

1. 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.
2. A form of rhetoric in which the writer or speaker uses emotional appeals to the audience as the main form of persuasion.
3. An author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
4. 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.
5. Suffering; the enduring of active stress or affliction.