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a ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax.
insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness.
triteness or triviality in style.
Contemporary Examples

Rather like the way of life it celebrates, The Radetzky March hinges on trivia and bathos more than any real grand gesture.
Favorite Historical Novels Stella Tillyard November 8, 2011

Historical Examples

In his fifth sonnet he may, I think, be said to have sounded the lowest chasm of the bathos.
The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) Thomas Babington Macaulay

One of their favourite blunders is an amazing sort of bathos.
Utopia of Usurers and other Essays Gilbert Keith Chesterton

There is a scene or two in which he takes his amazonian Judith to the very edge of bathos.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 Various

Outwardly cynical, he was sentimental to the point of bathos.
Narcissus Evelyn Scott

There was a horrible and 190 sardonic humour in the whole business, a bathos that insulted the soul.
The Pools of Silence H. de Vere Stacpoole

The romance of these remarkable espousals was not to find its conclusion in bathos.
Vendetta Marie Corelli

But on the present occasion we will not presume that our friend has fallen into so deep a bathos of misfortune.
Hunting Sketches Anthony Trollope

Under the circumstances, there was bathos amid the poor girl’s pathos!
Wanted: A Cook Alan Dale

The spear would not be said ‘almost to whirl about’ or ‘almost to revolve’; this involves a bathos.
Chaucer’s Works, Volume 6 (of 7) — Introduction, Glossary, and Indexes Geoffrey Chaucer

noun
a sudden ludicrous descent from exalted to ordinary matters or style in speech or writing
insincere or excessive pathos
triteness; flatness
the lowest point; nadir
n.

“anticlimax, a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous,” 1727, from Greek bathos “depth,” related to bathys “deep” (see benthos). Introduced by Pope.