bathos
/ˈbeɪθɑs/
noun
- A sudden change from a serious or important subject to something silly or trivial, often for humorous effect.
- Writers sometimes use bathos to make the audience laugh by lowering the emotional tone.
- The speech moved from a solemn tribute to bathos when the speaker started telling a joke about a chicken.
- The movie's dramatic ending was ruined by bathos when a cat walked across the screen.
- Insincere or exaggerated emotion in art or writing; false sentimentality.
- Critics accused the novel of bathos because it tried too hard to make readers cry.
- The poem was full of bathos, with over-the-top descriptions of a lost puppy.
- The painting's bathos made it feel more like a greeting card than a work of art.
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