dramatist

American  

[dram-uh-tist, drah-muh-] / ˈdræm ə tɪst, ˈdrɑ mə- /

noun

1. a writer of dramas or dramatic poetry; playwright.

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dramatist British  

/ ˈdræmətɪst /

noun

1. a writer of plays; playwright

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Other Word Forms

• superdramatist
  noun

Etymology

Origin of dramatist

1670–80; < Greek drāmat- ( see dramatic) + -ist

Explanation

A dramatist, or playwright, is a person who writes plays. Tennessee Williams, who wrote "The Glass Menagerie," is an example of a famous American dramatist. Using the noun dramatist is actually a pretty dramatic way to refer to a playwright. Its root is the word drama, which comes from a Greek word meaning "to do." So a dramatist is a writer whose works are full of action: stage directions, movement, and lines meant to be spoken by stage actors. If you scramble the letters of the word dramatist, you end up with "amidst art."

Example Sentences

"So as a dramatist, you think, well, how did we get to that in five months?"

From BBC • Feb. 16, 2026

A superb dramatist of social class, morality and love, Mr. Gurnah is a contemporary heir to George Eliot.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 12, 2025

Most of which would have been beyond the ken of the most daring 19th-century Scandinavian dramatist.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 28, 2025

Author of “School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play,” Bioh thrives as a dramatist of enclosed worlds.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 7, 2025

A New York Times correspondent in a London press conference quoted the author and dramatist James Baldwin, who thought the death of Malcolm X was “a major setback for the Negro movement.”

From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey