bathetic
/bəˈθɛtɪk/
adjective
Origin
Ancient Greek
βάθος — depth
Overview
Meaning Now
- Characterized by a sudden descent from the elevated or serious to the mundane, trivial, or absurd; anticlimactic.
- Lacking in genuine emotion or depth; mawkishly sentimental.
Literal older meaning
pertaining to the bathos
Language path
Ancient Greek → English
Earliest form
bathos
Earliest period
18th century
Journey
The term originates from Alexander Pope's 1727 essay 'Peri Bathous, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry'. Pope used the Greek word for 'depth' to satirize writers who attempted to reach the 'sublime' but instead fell into ridiculous, shallow, or overly sentimental writing. 'Bathetic' eventually emerged in the 19th century to describe this specific quality of failed elevation.
Evolution
- Ancient Greek
βάθος (bathos)
“depth”
- Early 18th century English
bathos
“a literary effect of sudden transition from the sublime to the ridiculous”
Coined by Alexander Pope to parody Longinus's 'On the Sublime'
- Late 19th century English
bathetic
“characteristic of bathos”
Formed by back-formation from 'bathos' using the suffix '-etic'
Connections
Word parts
bath-
root
depth
-etic
suffix
pertaining to
Related across languages
Ancient Greek
βαθύς (bathys)
deep
Explore next
Related to bathetic
External references use DefinedTerm semantics.