| \EE-thos, EE-thohs, ETH-os, -ohs\ | noun
1. Sociology. the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period: In the Greek ethos the individual was highly valued.
2. the character or disposition of a community, group, person, etc. | | Quotes | These stories and countless others attest to the democratic ethos of social mobility and fluidity, heavily inflected by the Romantic ethos of "rugged individualism" and, however reductivist, Emersonian "self-reliance."
-- Ann Lauterbach, The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience, 2005 | | Origin | | Ethos comes from the Greek term meaning "custom; habit; character," and provides the root for the term ethics. It entered English in the 1600s. | |
