When did pathetic and pathetisch divert in meaning?

Question

It seems clear that the two words have the same origin, yet pathetic and pathetisch seem to have significantly different meanings (or don't they?).

Pathetic is very negative with synonyms like pitiful, miserable, disgraceful, shameful, despicable, dishonorable etc. Whereas pathetisch is not necessarily negative, as it just means excessively dramatic or emotional. They do however show up as translations of each other, though usually being somewhere a bit further down on the list.

So first of all, what is the common ground that these two seem to have, how different are they in meaning? When and why did the meanings change? Have they once been used synonymously and if so, which meaning came first?

Answer 1

The German word still has the original meaning that was borrowed from Greek.

pathetisch
Bedeutung: übertrieben oder aufgesetzt gefühlvoll, leidenschaftlich

Herkunft: über spätlateinisch patheticus → la von altgriechisch παθητικός (pathētikós) → grc „erhaben, feierlich“, einer Ableitung zum Substantiv πάθος (pathos) → grc „Pathos“

The English word originally had the same meaning but it changed.

pathetic: archaic Relating to the emotions.

The contemporary English meaning of "arousing pity" is first recorded in 1737.

So, both words share their origin and meant the same thing many, many years ago. The English one lost its original meaning. I can neither answer when it was declared archaic nor can I say why it had changed. I didn't find anything about that.

Answer 2

My knowledge about the history of these words in German and English is limited, but I am a native speaker of both German and modern Greek and studied ancient Greek until a few years ago.

It is certain, that both of these derive from ancient Greek ΠΑΘΗΤΙΚΟΣ.

Liddell-Scott in the associated lemma claims that the word originally covered the following senses:

A.capable of emotion

B.Sensuous, impassioned,pathetic

C.Grammatically passive
(I omit two very special compounds you can check for yourself).

It is striking, that Liddell groups pathetic with sensuous making me wonder, how old the modern connotation of pathetic as contemptible is.

It is worth noting, that this dictionary documents additional uses beside contemptible, that are closer to the German meaning.

At first sight, it appears, that Greek, German and English restricted to different meanings. In Greek nowadays the - virtually sole - sense is "passive".