ethos is the characteristic spirit, values and moral character that distinguish a person, group, institution or culture.
The word is Greek, ēthos, which first meant an accustomed place and then custom, habit and character; it is the root of the word ethics. In classical rhetoric, Aristotle made ethos one of three modes of persuasion, alongside pathos, the appeal to emotion, and logos, the appeal to reason. In that sense ethos is the credibility a speaker earns through practical wisdom, virtue and goodwill toward the 📝Audience.
In modern use the word most often describes a collective character, such as the ethos of a company, a school or a movement: the values its members share and act on. It differs from ethics, which names principles of right conduct, in that an ethos is lived and observed in behavior rather than written down as rules.