Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Anticlimax

ANTICLIMAX ([ Greek ] and [ Greek ]), in rhetoric, is an abrupt declension on the part of a speaker or writer from the dignity of idea which he has attained, as in the following well-known distich:—

" The great Dalhousie, he, the god of war,

Lieutenant-colonel to the earl of Mar."

From its character it is plain that it can be intentionally employed only for a jocular or satiric purpose. It frequently partakes of the nature of antithesis, as—

"Die and endow a college or a cat."

From bathos it is distinguished by being much more decidedly a relative term. A whole speech may never rise above the level of bathos; but a climax of greater or less elevation is the necessary antecedent of an anticlimax.