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bathos
[ bey-thos, -thaws, -thohs ]
noun
- a ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax.
- insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness.
Synonyms: tearfulness, maudlinness, schmaltz, gush, mush
- triteness or triviality in style.
Synonyms: insipidity, inanity
bathos
/ ˈbeɪθɒs /
noun
- a sudden ludicrous descent from exalted to ordinary matters or style in speech or writing
- insincere or excessive pathos
- triteness; flatness
- the lowest point; nadir
Word History and Origins
Origin of bathos1
Word History and Origins
Origin of bathos1
Example Sentences
Open Roads, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden take on the emotional depths of family life in ways that shred the heartstrings — mostly without slipping into bathos.
Yet even as Winocour piles on too many complications, she retains an appreciable astringency — call it a sense of emotional realism about what it means to actually survive — that keeps bathos at bay.
The grid — a modernist pictorial device that she deploys with postmodernist bathos — is rendered in wonky, spray-painted lines or a loose pink and brown checkerboard.
But it also lapsed into bathos at times, in galleries about the events of Sept. 11, 2001, or a shrine to journalists killed while on duty.
Shot in Utica, N.Y., and boasting locations that set a high bar for starkness, “Clean” has some real craft, but doesn’t quite satisfy as it toggles between bloodbaths and bathos.
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