Definition of "bathetic" [ba•thet•ic]

• Characterized by bathos. See Synonyms at sentimental. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The synonymy of such lovesick sappiness: mawkish is unpleasantly insipid; maudlin is teary (an alteration of the weeping penitent Mary Magdalene); gushy is prone to pour out torrents of flattery; schmaltzy is cornball; gooey implies a substance or emotion both sticky and slithery; squishy-soft is moistly weak; bathetic, from the Greek bathos (“depth”), coined on the analogy of pathos to pathetic, connotes both triteness and insincerity."
• "I used 'bathetic' in an e-mail to council colleagues - one of them told me my spellchecker was faulty."
• "It's not quite as able and seemingly effortless as some of Lovecraft's later work would usually be although anyone who finds this story "dry and long-winded" with a "bathetic" ending, as Joshi claims to, shouldn't be as fond of "Shadow Out of Time" as Joshi claims he is, but it's much, much better than the critical consensus seems to have it."