Definition of "anticlimax" noun countable and uncountable , plural anticlimaxes
A failed or reverse climax , particularly : quotations
Quotations Reed , Superba of yore , made a gallant effort to summon the Promethean fire that once burned within him when it was his “listening senates to command ,” but his vaunted perorations proved anticlimaces and his oratory a flop .
1935 September 18, “The Two Dromios, Jim and Jouette”, in Columbia Daily Tribune, volume XXXV, number 5, Columbia, Mo., page six, column 1
If the siege of Boston seemed to end in anticlimax with the sudden retreat of British military forces , the siege of New York City seen from the inside , from under siege , seemed infinitely more portentous : “The Day is Come that in all Probility on which Depends the Salvation of this Countery .”
2009, Konstantin Dierks, “Revolution and War”, in In My Power: Letter Writing and Communications in Early America, Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, page 225