pathetic fallacy

American  

noun

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

---

pathetic fallacy British  

noun

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

---

Etymology

Origin of pathetic fallacy

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

Example Sentences

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

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

Now and then someone on EastEnders remembers the concept of pathetic fallacy and turns on a bloody big hose.

From The Guardian • Jun. 25, 2010

Ruskin, John: on metaphysics, 250; certain chapters, 336; pathetic fallacy, 337; plagiarism, 384.

From Ralph Waldo Emerson by Holmes, Oliver Wendell