Aristophanes

American  

[ar-uh-stof-uh-neez] / ˌær əˈstɒf əˌniz /

noun

1. 448?–385? b.c., Athenian comic dramatist.

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Aristophanes British  

/ ˌærɪˈstɒfəˌniːz /

noun

1. ?448–?380 _bc , Greek comic dramatist, who satirized leading contemporary figures such as Socrates and Euripides. Eleven of his plays are extant, including The Clouds, The Frogs, The Birds, and Lysistrata

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Aristophanes Cultural  

1. An ancient Greek dramatist, the author of such comedies as The Clouds and Lysistrata.

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Other Word Forms

• Aristophanic adjective

Example Sentences

In Plato’s “Apology,” the downfall of Socrates is blamed on Aristophanes, who in his play “The Clouds” had ridiculed Socrates as a charlatan, helping to turn public opinion against him.

From New York Times • Jan. 20, 2022

The show, based on the Aristophanes comedy, originally had been done 20 years earlier in the Yale University swimming pool.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 26, 2021

Aristophanes is a reference to my previous column, where I mentioned that classics scholars still debate what certain lines in the Greek’s plays mean.

From Washington Post • Jul. 25, 2021

Maybe a future piece will add the comic playwright Aristophanes to the discussion.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 17, 2020

In his comic play The Clouds, Aristophanes, writing in 420 bc, lampooned rhetoric as the art of weak reasoning, “which by false arguments triumphs over the strong.”

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith