bathos
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Ancient Greek βάθος (báthos, “depth”). Employed ironically following Alexander Pope's Peri Bathous, lampooning various errors in contemporary writers.
Pronunciation
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Noun
bathos (uncountable)
- Overdone or treacly attempts to inspire pathos.
- 1847, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, page 192:
- I like you more than I can say; but I'll not sink into a bathos of sentiment...
- (now uncommon) Depth.
- 1638, Robert Sanderson, "A sermon preached at Newport in the Isle of Wight", II.101:
- There is such a height, and depth, and length, and breadth in that love; such a βάθος in every dimension of it.
- 1638, Robert Sanderson, "A sermon preached at Newport in the Isle of Wight", II.101:
- (literature, the arts) Risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to
- 1727, Alexander Pope, Peri Bathous:
- anticlimax: an abrupt transition in style or subject from high to low.
- banality: unaffectingly clichéd or trite treatment of a topic.
- immaturity: lack of serious treatment of a topic.
- hyperbole: excessiveness
- (literature, the arts) The ironic use of such failure for satiric or humorous effect.
- (uncommon) A nadir, a low point particularly in one's career.
- 1814, Thomas Jefferson, Writings, IV.240:
- How meanly has he closed his inflated career! What a sample of the bathos will his history present!
- 1847, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, chapter XXI:
- 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.
- 2018, Matthew d'Ancona, The Tories are a party in crisis, their identity in desperate shape in the Guardian:[1]
- 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.
- 1814, Thomas Jefferson, Writings, IV.240:
Synonyms
- (anticlimax): See anticlimax
- (artistic failure through banality): banality, triteness
- (artistic failure through triviality): immaturity, callowness
- (artistic failure through hyperbole): chewing the scenery, hamminess
- (artistic failure through overdone pathos): sappiness, cheesiness, tweeness, treacliness
Antonyms
Translations
depth — see depth
unintentional failure at artistic effect
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anticlimax — see anticlimax
overdone pathos
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ironically bad artistic effect
nadir — see nadir