pathetic fallacy

noun

: the ascription of human traits or feelings to inanimate nature (as in cruel sea)

Examples of pathetic fallacy in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Munch treated nature not as a sentimental projection, a consolation, a pathetic fallacy, but as something animated, interconnected and potentially annihilating. —Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 22 June 2023

The pathetic fallacy — the almost irresistible tendency to project human feelings on inanimate things, like the weather — inclines us to remember the winters during periods of crisis — wars, economic depressions and pandemics — as particularly dark, no matter how clement the weather. —Washington Post, 20 Dec. 2020

The skies are heavy with rain and pathetic fallacy; rarely does a film feel quite so frigid, so damp to the touch. —Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 1 Dec. 2022

The problem begins when that feeling is passed off as fact, in a kind of reverse pathetic fallacy, as if our emotions reflected the state of the planet. —Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, 5 July 2021

Word History

First Known Use

1856, in the meaning defined above