bathos

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Overdone or treacly attempts to inspire pathos.

   • I like you more than I can say; but I'll not sink into a bathos of sentiment...
2. 2

   A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience,…

   A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to

   • 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.
3. 3

   The ironic use of such failure for satiric or humorous effect.

4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      A nadir, a low point particularly in one's career.

      • 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.

The neighborhood

• synonymbanalityartistic failure through banality
• synonymtritenessartistic failure through banality
• synonymimmaturityartistic failure through triviality
• synonymcallownessartistic failure through triviality
• synonymchewing the scenery, hamminessartistic failure through hyperbole
• antonymdepthantonym(s) of “depth”
• antonympathosantonym(s) of “artistic failure”
• antonymnadirantonym(s) of “nadir”
• neighborcomic relief