pathetic fallacy

American

noun

the endowment of nature, inanimate objects, etc., with human traits and feelings, as in the smiling skies; the angry sea.

pathetic fallacy British

noun

(in literature) the presentation of inanimate objects in nature as possessing human feelings

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of pathetic fallacy

Coined by John Ruskin in Modern Painters Vol. III, Part IV (1856)

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

pathetic fallacy

With pathetic fallacy worthy of Shakespeare, rain and wind lashed the island of Manhattan as I clutched my voice recorder from the back seat of my taxi heading uptown.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2019

Mostly, heckling is just one example of the pathetic fallacy of fandom, that those of us in the seats are part of the action, essential to our team’s success—that we matter.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 8, 2014

The pathetic fallacy hardly intrudes, so acute are the observations.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 22, 2013

A classic drear of English rain would seem to have a nice pathetic fallacy to it, but a small meteorological catastrophe could also be thematically appropriate.

From Slate ● Nov. 28, 2011

We do not smile at the pathetic fallacy when we are alone with cold.

From Minstrel Weather by Marian Storm

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023