Definition of "bathos" [ba•thos]

• An abrupt, unintended transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace, producing a ludicrous effect. (noun)
• An anticlimax. (noun)
• Insincere or grossly sentimental pathos: "a richly textured man who . . . can be . . . sentimental to the brink of bathos” ( Kenneth L. Woodward). (noun)
• Banality; triteness. (noun)

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.

• "Longinus's warning against bathos is a dangerous one for those who would take it too much to heart."
• ""'Frisco Kid's Story" (Aegis, 15 February 1895) is mawkish and sentimental, a lesson in bathos and in how not to handle dialect (that is, by employing an abundance of it)."
• "Despite the rad profile, nest was as knee-deep in bathos and bourgeois denial as any other shelter mag."