Bathos

Definitions: Bathos

Bathos

Noun

1. Triteness or triviality of style.

2. Insincere pathos.

3. A change from a serious subject to a disappointing one.

Date "bathos" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references)

Etymology: Bathos \Ba"thos\, noun. [Greek expression depth, from deep.]. (Websters 1913)

Domain	Definitions
Literature	Bathos [Greek, bathos, depth]. A ludicrous descent from grandiloquence to commonplace. A literary mermaid. "Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam Jungere si velit ... ut turpiter atrum Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne." "Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus." Horace: De Arte Poetica, line 139. A good example is the well-known couplet: "And thou, Dalhousie, the great god of war, Lieutenant-general to the earl of Mar." Source: Brewer's Dictionary.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Bathos literally means "sinking" and is the combination of the very high with the very low. The term was introduced by Alexander Pope in his Peri Bathos, 1727. Pope's work is a parody of Longinus' On the Sublime (Peri Hupsos), in that he imitates Longinus's style for the purpose of ridiculing contemporary poets. Pope offers a lengthy schematic of the ways in which authors might "sink" in poetry, but the method that is most remembered now is the art of combining very serious matters with very trivial ones. (For example, he mentions a line of verse where God sweeps the clouds from the sky as being ridiculous for making the Creator a housemaid.) When something sublime is mixed with something ridiculous, the effect is comic or "bathetic" (e.g. children performing Macbeth or a Garden Club passion play).

When artists consciously mix the very serious with the very trivial, the effect is the absurd and absurd humor. However, when an artist is unconscious of the juxtaposition (e.g. when a film maker means for a man in a gorilla suit with a diving helmet to be frightening), the result is bathos.

A tolerant but detached enjoyment of the esthetic failure that is inherent in naive, unconscious and honest bathos is an element of the camp sensibility, as first analyzed by Susan Sontag, in an essay 'Notes on camp' that first appeared in Partisan Review, 1960 [1].

Arguably, kitsch is bathos in concrete arts.

Synonyms: Bathos

Synonyms: anticlimax (n), mawkishness (n). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Absurdity	Blunder, muddle, bull; Irishism, Hibernicism; slipslop; anticlimax, bathos; sophism.
Ridiculousness	Farce, comedy; burlesque; (ridicule); buffoonery; (fun); frippery; doggerel verses; absurdity; bombast; (unmeaning); anticlimax, bathos; eccentricity, monstrosity; (unconformity); laughingstock.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

"Bathos" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 82.61% of the time. "Bathos" is used about 23 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (plural)	82.61%	19	80,337
Noun (proper)	17.39%	4	175,879
Total	100.00%	23	N/A

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "bathos"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		rënie (abatement, collapse, come down, decadence, decadency, decay, decline, decrepitude, degeneracy, degradation, degression, depression, descent, dilapidation, downfall, drop, drop off, fall, falling, flop, incidence, lapse, letdown, precipitation, prolapse, recession, regress, spill, taper, tumble, wane), greminë (abyss, deep, precipice). (various references)

Arabic		‏تفاهة في الأسلوب. (various references)

Bulgarian		фиаско (dead frost, fiasco, flash in the pan, lash up), пропаст (abyss, chasm, precipice), пресилен патос, изтърканост. (various references)

German		Gemeinplatz (commonplace, truism). (various references)

Greek		γελοία κατάπτωση (anticlimax), αντικλίμακα (anti-climax), απότομη πτώση ύψουσ. (various references)

Hebrew		ר�'ש� ות מעוש�". (various references)

Hungarian		lapos stílus, álpátosz (affected pathos, fustian), hirtelen színvonalsüllyedés, hétköznapi stílus, fakó stílus, antiklimax (anticlimax). (various references)

Indonesian		kecengengan (bathetic, sappy). (various references)

Italian		anticlimax (anticlimax). (various references)

Pig Latin		athosbay

Portuguese		efeito patético forçado, anticlímax (anticlimax). (various references)

Romanian		batos, trecere de la elevat la prozaic. (various references)

Russian		развенчание (dethronement), ложный пафос. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		banalnost (banality, commonplace, triteness), najniža tačka, anti klimaks. (various references)

Spanish		trivialidad (banality, bromide, commonplace, triviality), sensiblería (mawkishness, mush, sappiness, sentimentality), paso de lo sublime a lo ridículo. (various references)

Swedish		djup (deep, deepness, dept, depth, depths, full, fullness, fulness, great, intimate, keen, low, profound, profoundness, sounding). (various references)

Thai		การเสแสร้งสงสารหรือเห็นใจมากเกินไป. (various references)

Turkish		bayatlamışlık, sıradanlık (commonness, mediocrity), sıradan konuları işleme, gölgelenme, gölgede kalma, üslubun etkisizleşmesi. (various references)

Ukranian		удаваний пафос, розвінчання, глибина (deep, deepness, depth, profound, profoundness, profundity), падіння (come down, cracker, demission, downfall, drop, dropping, fall, falling, labefaction, subsidence, tumble, upset). (various references)

Vietnamese		chỗ sâu. (various references)

Welsh		affwysedd. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Greek	700 BCE-300 CE	bathos. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "bathos": bathoses. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Bathos" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: athos, baho, Bahot, Balthis, Banhofs, Barthou, Bashow, Batco, Bathams, Bathans, bathest, Batho, bathoa, Bathous, bathtoys, bathu, Batov, beethov, Bethoc, Bethoe, bohos, Bulhoes, Buthus, Cathos, jathuk, Nbthis, Rathus. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Words rhyming with "bathos" (pronounced 'Ba"thos'): Benthos, Ethos. (additional references)

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-b-h-o-s-t"
	-1 letter: bahts, baths, boast, boats, botas, hosta, oaths, sabot, shoat.
	-2 letters: abos, baht, bash, bast, bath, bats, boas, boat, bosh, bota, both, bots, hast, hats, hobs, host, hots, oast, oath, oats, shat, shot, soth, stab, stoa, stob, tabs, taos, tosh.
	-3 letters: abo, abs, ash, bah, bas, bat, boa, bos, bot, hao, has, hat, hob, hot, oat, ohs, sab, sat, sha, sob, sot, tab, tao, tas, tho.
	-4 letters: ab, ah, as, at, ba, bo, ha, ho, oh, os, sh, so, ta, to.
	Words containing the letters "a-b-h-o-s-t"
	+1 letter: isobath.
	+2 letters: bathoses, bushgoat, cohabits, hatboxes, hautbois, hautboys, isobaths, showboat, tarboosh.
	+3 letters: autobahns, badmouths, bathhouse, bathrobes, bathrooms, biathlons, boathooks, boathouse, boltheads, bushgoats, cohobates, footbaths, hardboots, hecatombs, hoofbeats, houseboat, hypoblast, johnboats, mothballs, showboats.
	+4 letters: aitchbones, backcloths, bathhouses, batholiths, betrothals, bloodbaths, boathouses, broadsheet, deathblows, hereabouts, hospitable, hospitably, houseboats, hypoblasts, matchbooks, matchboxes, notchbacks, shortbread, showboated, tabboulehs, tarbooshes, thornbacks, throwbacks, touchbacks, turboshaft, whaleboats.
	+5 letters: abolishment, beachfronts, behaviorist, bichromates, blackthorns, bodhisattva, brachiators, broadcloths, broadsheets, cohabitants, ethambutols, habitations, heartthrobs, hebetations, hibernators, holoblastic, houseboater, lymphoblast, matchboards, patchboards, rubythroats, shortbreads, showboating, stenobathic, switchboard, tablecloths, thereabouts, trophoblast, turboshafts, whereabouts, whiteboards.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.