bathos

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

bathos

/ˈbeɪθɒs/ UK

Rhymes with -eɪθɒs

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Ancient Greek βάθος (báthos, “depth”). Employed ironically following Alexander Pope's Peri Bathous, lampooning various errors in contemporary writers.

noun bathoses

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...
Similar: narm, sappiness, cheesiness, tweeness, treacliness
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.
uncountable, usually An anticlimax: an abrupt transition in style or subject from high to low.
Similar: anticlimax
uncountable, usually A banality: an unaffectingly clichéd or trite treatment of a topic.
uncountable, usually Immaturity: a lack of serious treatment of a topic.
uncountable, usually 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. How meanly has he closed his inflated career! What a sample of the bathos will his history present!

Thesaurus

noun

Translations

Every language

noun overdone pathos

Français	mauvais pathos

noun unintentional failure at artistic effect

Français	bathos
Deutsch	Bathos

Talk about this word

Cite this

MLA

"bathos." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/bathos. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

bathos. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/bathos

Chicago

"bathos." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/bathos.

BibTeX

@misc{bathos_2026,
  title = {bathos},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/bathos},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}