as in sentimentality
the state or quality of having an excess of tender feelings (as of love, nostalgia, or compassion)
a novel that wallows in bathos
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of bathos
So the question is why and how our moment of—pick your poison—late capitalism, permanent emergency, the death of the Anthropocene—has turned to an old form to describe the oxymoronic simultaneity of pathos and bathos, horror and the risible.
—
Eugenie Brinkema,
ARTnews.com,
14 June 2026
Still, all of the bathos in the world can’t keep this would-be blockbuster from being a prime example of le cinéma du bottom line.
—
David Fear,
Rolling Stone,
4 June 2026
This time round, though, an unfortunate silliness sometimes creeps in, where the film risks tipping over Shakespearean-size emotions into embarrassing bathos.
—
Miriam Balanescu,
IndieWire,
5 Mar. 2026
The faces smile softly with their eyes closed, beatific in their bliss without falling into bathos.
—
Jerry Saltz,
Vulture,
19 Nov. 2025
At the same time, no one in metal was funnier, more in touch with his own bathos, more post–Spinal Tap, in a sense, than Ozzy, especially in his shambling-paterfamilias incarnation on MTV’s reality show The Osbournes.
—
James Parker,
The Atlantic,
12 Sep. 2025
Eugenie Brinkema,
ARTnews.com,
14 June 2026
Still, all of the bathos in the world can’t keep this would-be blockbuster from being a prime example of le cinéma du bottom line.
—
David Fear,
Rolling Stone,
4 June 2026
This time round, though, an unfortunate silliness sometimes creeps in, where the film risks tipping over Shakespearean-size emotions into embarrassing bathos.
—
Miriam Balanescu,
IndieWire,
5 Mar. 2026
The faces smile softly with their eyes closed, beatific in their bliss without falling into bathos.
—
Jerry Saltz,
Vulture,
19 Nov. 2025
At the same time, no one in metal was funnier, more in touch with his own bathos, more post–Spinal Tap, in a sense, than Ozzy, especially in his shambling-paterfamilias incarnation on MTV’s reality show The Osbournes.
—
James Parker,
The Atlantic,
12 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bathos
Noun
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So much of Jaeychino’s ethos is informed by the improbability of beating the odds, the sentimentality that comes with that, and the ability to flex on niggas when your tears dry up.
-
Season four course-corrected somewhat, but its hard embrace of a bleeding-heart sentimentality around found families and the power of food smacked of self-importance.
Noun
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The Academy historically goes for sentimentalism.
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While leaders of the nature-study movement warned against sentimentalism and make-believe, young readers were delighted by such tales.
Cite this Entry
“Bathos.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bathos. Accessed 5 Jul. 2026.
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