bathos: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

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Word of the Day for Sunday, June 6, 2010 bathos \BEY-thos\, noun: 1. Triteness or triviality in style. 2. A ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax. 3. Insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness. After one character undergoes a particularly lightning-speed change in temperament, the director lays on a ludicrously coincidental plot twist with sentimental bathos that nearly swamps everything that has gone before. -- Ann Hornaday, "Movie review: In 'Mother and Child,' Bening and Epps give strong performances", Washington Post, May 2010 Neither, in the end, can Jacob weave his own pattern. His trans-oceanic dream of liberty and learning will close in the damp bathos of a Zeeland backwater - until, in a last spine-shivering gasp, the free spirit of the story walks again... -- David Mitchell, Book review: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet", Belfast Telegraph, May 2010 Bathos was introduced into English by Alexander Pope in his satirical 1727 essay, Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry. Read the full entry | See synonyms | Comment on today's word | Suggest tomorrow's word Yesterday's word | Previous words | Help
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