1. the disposition, character, or fundamental values peculiar to a specific person, people, culture, or movement: "they cultivated a subversive alternative ethos” ( anthony burgess).

1. the character or fundamental values of a person, people, culture, or movement.

1. the character, sentiment, or disposition of a community or people, considered as a natural endowment; the spirit which actuates manners and customs; also, the characteristic tone or genius of an institution or social organization.
2. the traits in a work of art which express the ideal or typic character -- character as influenced by the ethos (sense 1) of a people -- rather than realistic or emotional situations or individual character in a narrow sense; -- opposed to

1. habitual character and disposition.
2. specifically in the gr. fine arts, etc., the inherent quality of a work which produces, or is fitted to produce, a high moral impression, noble, dignified, and universal, as opposed to a work characterized by pathos, or the particular, accidental, passionate, realistic quality.

1. (anthropology) the distinctive spirit of a culture or an era