Make Your Point > Archived Issues > BATHETIC

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pronounce BATHETIC: Say it "buh THET ick." To hear it, click here. connect this word to others: In the list of synonyms below, see if you can supply the last two:    Gushy    Sappy    Sobby    Weepy    Sentimental    Bathetic ("emotional in an insincere, over-the-top way")    M_____n ("way too emotional in a tearful way")    Lu____ious ("gloomy or mournful in a fake or exaggerated way") (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)  definition: Something bathetic is emotional in a fake or overdone way. You can stop reading if you're satisfied with that definition. But you probably want to know, why does "bathetic" ("overly emotional") look so much like "pathetic" ("inspiring pity or compassion")? First, it's because they both trace back to Greek words that look slightly similar: "pathetic" traces back to pathein, meaning "to suffer;" and "bathetic" traces back to bathos, meaning "depth." Second, it's because we used the older English word "pathetic" as a model when creating the newer English one "bathetic." Probably. We're not completely sure about that. It may have been Samuel Taylor Coleridge who coined "bathetic," probably while in a cranky mood as he wrote: "Even Warburton would scarcely have made so deep a plunge into the bathetic." He may have been thinking, "Something with pathos is pathetic, so something with bathos is bathetic. What a zinger. I'm terribly clever." "Pathetic" doesn't actually come straight from "pathos," but Coleridge probably didn't know that or didn't care. He probably did know that "bathos," from the Greek for "depth," can mean any of the following things:    1. the lowest point: the absolute rock-bottom of something;    2. the act of sinking all the way to the worst, lowest, or most ridiculous point of something, especially from lofty ideas all the way down to crude, stupid, ordinary, or commonplace ideas; and    3. emotion or sentimentality that's fake or overdone, often on stage. So, coming back around to "bathetic," it most often means what Coleridge meant by it: "emotional in a fake or overdone way, as if sinking deeply into the ridiculous." It can also mean "sinking ridiculously from loftiness to crudeness or ordinariness." grammatical bits: Part of speech: Adjective: "the actress's clumsy, bathetic performance;" "Each greeting card I picked up was more bathetic than the last." Other forms:  The noun is "bathos," and the adverb, "bathetically." An alternate adjective is "bathotic." It's rarer. how to use it: Pick the rare, scholarly, insulting word "bathetic" when you're calling attention to just how profoundly sappy or stagey something is, whether you're joking or being sincere. You'll notice how this word tends to appear in snooty, highbrow reviews: reviews of albums, shows, films, musicals, ballets, etc. "It's nothing but a soap opera, full of tearful confessions and bathetic slaps." You might talk or write about a bathetic song, line, stanza, scene, moment, image, performance, advertisement, etc. Since the more common meaning of "bathetic" is "ridiculously emotional" (rather than "sinking from the sublime to the vulgar"), that's the meaning we'll keep focusing on throughout this issue. But you can certainly use the less common one. Here's an example from the New York Times: "It would be bathetic to compare the upheavals, rebellions and mortal struggles of the Arab Spring to the changing of the guard among fashion designers." examples: "'That's not a man!' he gasped, in what was obviously one of world drama's great bathetic lines."    — Gerard McBurney, The Guardian, 14 July 2011 "The 90-minute film... stoops to predictable bathos when the subject turns to Mr. Johnson’s H.I.V. diagnosis. Its narration includes lines like, 'They were thrown together by the cosmos to compete.'"    — Mike Hale, New York Times, 5 March 2010 has this page helped you understand "bathetic"? Awesome, I'm glad it helped! Thanks for letting me know! If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. study it: Explain the meaning of "bathetic" without saying "soupy" or "schmaltzy."  try it out: Bathos is in the eye of the beholder. In the Guardian, Gerard McBurney recalls listening to a piece of music live as a child, and loving it: "'It's beautiful', I said when it was over. 'Not really', my father answered. 'It only seems beautiful to you now. When you are older, you will realise that it is actually very cheap and sentimental.'" What the young Gerard found beautiful, his father found bathetic. Could you give another example of something (like a show, a song, or a poem) that strikes some people as beautiful but others as bathetic? Maybe it's something you find bathetic today that you found beautiful as a child. If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.) before you review, play: Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out. Our game for August is "Heard it in Hamilton." Check out a snippet of lyrics from Hamilton: An American Musical, and see if you can come up with the missing word. You can check your answer by scrolling all the way down.  Try this one today: LAURENS:    You and I. Do or die. Wait till I _____ in    on a stallion with the first black battalion,    have another shot!  Definition of the missing word: "to suddenly head out into a new area." Number of syllables: 2. review this word: 1. A near opposite of BATHETIC is A. DEADPAN. B. OFF-PUTTING. C. INSPIRATIONAL. 2. Knowing the origin of the word "bathetic," we can infer that something "bathybius" lives _____. A. on the edge of a pond B. way down deep in the sea C. way up high in the branches Answers to review questions: 1. A 2. B Answer to the game question: sally. a final word: I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog:    36 ways to study words.    Why we forget words, & how to remember them.    How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.