Bathos

/ˈbeɪθɒs/ · noun

Meaning

Overdone or treacly attempts to inspire pathos..

Definitions by Sense

1. Overdone or treacly attempts to inspire pathos.
2. (literature, art) A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:
3. (literature, art) The ironic use of such failure for satiric or humorous effect.
4. (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...

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.

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

I know what he suffers now, for instance, exactly: it is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer, though. And he’ll never be able to emerge from his bathos of coarseness and ignorance.

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.

Synonyms for bathos

Antonyms for bathos

Related Words

Word Forms

• bathoses

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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