bathos
/ˈbeɪθɒs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.71 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to
Uncountable
noun
A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:
Uncountable
noun
A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:
Uncountable
noun
A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:
Uncountable
noun
A risible failure on the part of a work of art to properly affect its audience, particularly owing to:
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "I like you more than I can say; but I'll not sink into a bathos of sentiment..."
- "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."
- "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."
Etymology
Borrowed from Ancient Greek βάθος (báthos, “depth”). Employed ironically following Alexander Pope's Peri Bathous, lampooning various errors in contemporary writers.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: βάθος
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /ˈbeɪθɒs/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
Synonyms
anticlimax
narm
banality
triteness
immaturity
callowness
chewing the scenery, hamminess
sappiness
cheesiness
tweeness
treacliness