Definition of "anti-climax"

These tautologies and anti-climaces were too much for the colonel, and we are ashamed to say that he committed himself by publishing in the Commercial an indignant denial of ever having indited such an epistle.

1841 November, Edgar A[llan] Poe, “A Chapter on Autography”, in Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine. […], volume XIX, number 5, Philadelphia, Penn.: George G. Graham, page 224, column 2

Allowing for the confusion of a first night, the dialogue is eminently weak and slipshod; anti-climaces abound, and the ridiculous and the sentimental are too often blended together unintentionally.

1867 November 2, “The “Queen’s” House-Warming”, in The Tomahawk: A Saturday Journal of Satire, volume I, number 26, London: Office of The Tomahawk, […], page 263, column 1

We never had the pleasure of hearing the noble Lord; but we have no difficulty in recognising in the pages, now before us, the eloquent platitudes and brilliant anti-climaces with which the learned editor has so often favoured peccant audiences.

, The Chameleon, volumes 2–23, Aberdeen, page 15

Such messages or symbolic significances as Cawein’s poems contain usually are slight things, added, it often seems as afterthoughts, sometimes they mar the poems with anti-climaces.

1917 March, Joyce Kilmer, “The Poor Step-Dame. (Some Considerations of the Poetry of the Late Madison Cawein.)”, in The Catholic World. A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science Published by the Paulist Fathers., volume CIV, number 624, New York, N.Y.: The Office of The Catholic World […], section IV, page 813

Anti-climax, though a defect, is to be preferred to an end that is distorted in order to achieve emphasis. In an older day there was such a dread of anti-climax and such a passion for “a curtain” that, whether probable or not, their comedies ended with marriages all around and their tragedies with as much death as possible.

1925, Robert I[gnatius] Gannon, The Technique of the One-Act-Play: A Text-Book, New York, N.Y.: Fordham University Press, page 101

Tomorrow I go into St Mary’s Paddington for an operation. I am frightened. No, I am not frightened. Yes, I am. Anti-climax of anti-climaxes. Or should it be anti-climaces?

1953 January 8, Bryan Connon, quoting Beverley Nichols, “Sunlight and shadows (1945–1953)”, in Beverley Nichols: A Life, London: Constable, published 1991, page 237

As Liverpool's players slumped to the turf, with Trent Alexander-Arnold standing motionless for several minutes, manager Jurgen Klopp and his players will reflect on an outstanding campaign that brought two trophies but also ended in undoubted anti-climax.

2022 May 28, Phil McCulty, “Liverpool 0-1 Real Madrid”, in BBC Sport