Bathos

Quick meaning: Bathos is a noun meaning Overdone or treacly attempts to inspire pathos.

Meaning

Overdone or treacly attempts to inspire pathos.

More Meanings

1. (literature, art) A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:
2. (literature, art) The ironic use of such failure for satiric or humorous effect.
3. (uncommon) A nadir, a low point particularly in one's career.

Example Sentences

I like you more than I can say; but I'll not sink into a bathos of sentiment.

How meanly has he closed his inflated career! What a sample of the bathos will his history present!

While a plain and direct Road is pav'd to their ὐψος, or sublime; no Track has been yet chalk'd out to arrive at our βάθος, or profund.

Thus can the ideology of the fringe, the pinstripe mutterings of the nativist few, end up determining the trajectory of an entire nation. This is where bathos meets tragedy.

Word Forms

• bathoses

Synonyms for bathos

Depending on context, synonyms include anticlimax, narm, banality, triteness, immaturity, callowness.

Antonyms for bathos

Common opposites include depth, pathos, nadir.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include mawkishness, anticlimax, maudlinism, overdramatics, melodramatics, oversentimentality.

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