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.

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pathetic fallacy British  

noun

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

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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

Climate change is, of course, a kind pathetic fallacy come to life, our own contempt for nature reflected back to us in a distorted and grotesque form.

From Slate • Apr. 29, 2016

In 1856, in the third volume of “Modern Painters,” Ruskin criticized writers for attributing human emotions to the natural world, a tendency that he famously termed the pathetic fallacy.

From The New Yorker • Nov. 23, 2015

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

That is the pathetic fallacy again; and that is man all over.

From Lore of Proserpine by Hewlett, Maurice Henry