bathos en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /ˈbeɪθɒs/ (UK)
Etymology
Borrowed from Ancient Greek βάθος (báthos, “depth”). Employed ironically following Alexander Pope's Peri Bathous, lampooning various errors in contemporary writers.
Meanings
-
(uncountable, usually) 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...
1847, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, page 192:
-
(uncountable, usually) 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.
1727, Alexander Pope, Peri Bathous:
- (uncountable, usually) A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to: ▸ An anticlimax: an abrupt transition in style or subject from high to low.
- (uncountable, usually) A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to: ▸ A banality: an unaffectingly clichéd or trite treatment of a topic.
- (uncountable, usually) A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to: ▸ Immaturity: a lack of serious treatment of a topic.
- (uncountable, usually) A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to: ▸ A hyperbole: excessiveness.
- (uncountable, usually) The ironic use of such failure for satiric or humorous effect.
-
(uncommon, uncountable, usually) A nadir, a low point particularly in one's career.
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.
2018, Matthew d'Ancona, “The Tories are a party in crisis, their identity in desperate shape”, in Guardian:How meanly has he closed his inflated career! What a sample of the bathos will his history present!
1814, Thomas Jefferson, Writings, IV.240: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.
1847, Emily Brontë, chapter XXI, in Wuthering Heights:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| bathoses | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Antonyms
nadir (antonym(s) of “nadir”) · depth (antonym(s) of “depth”) · pathos (antonym(s) of “artistic failure”)
Deriveds
Relateds
Synonyms
triteness (artistic failure through banality) · banality (artistic failure through banality) · chewing the scenery, hamminess (artistic failure through hyperbole) · tweeness (artistic failure through overdone pathos) · anticlimax (anticlimax) · treacliness (artistic failure through overdone pathos) · narm (artistic failure to inspire emotion) · immaturity (artistic failure through triviality) · callowness (artistic failure through triviality) · sappiness (artistic failure through overdone pathos) · cheesiness (artistic failure through overdone pathos)
Translations (7)
pl batos (unintentional failure at artistic effect) · de Bathos (unintentional failure at artistic effect) · fr mauvais pathos (overdone pathos) · pl batos (overdone pathos) · nl valse pathos (overdone pathos) · fr bathos (unintentional failure at artistic effect) · pl batos (ironically bad artistic effect)