| \BEY-thos, -thaws, -thohs\ | noun
1. insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness.
2. a ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax.
| | Quotes | The Finnish director has an exact target in mind, the niche between bathos and true poignance.
-- Desson Howe, "La Vie de Boheme," Washington Post, November 5, 1993 | | | | | | | | | | Origin of bathos | | Bathos comes from the Greek noun of the same spelling meaning "depth." It entered English in the 1630s with its original meaning "depth." Its current sense dates to Alexander Pope's essay (1727) Peri Bathous "On Depth," whose title is taken from the essay Peri Hypsous "On the Sublime" of the otherwise unknown Longinus, who lived between the first and third centuries A.D. | |
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