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

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Etymology

Origin of dramatist

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

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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

See Examples For:

dramatist

Tolkien seems to have been of two minds about Shakespeare, Mr. Taylor relates—“suspicious of his reputation as a dramatist, while . . . allowing the resonance of many an individual line.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

The playwright’s fellow dramatist George Chapman published seven books of his verse translations of the “Iliad” in 1598.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

But neither was he drawn to the issue-laden work of his more politically minded postwar British playwriting peers, that new breed of dramatist unleashed by John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 30, 2025

That the greatest dramatist of the last 500 years is married to someone wholly incurious about his art is, in itself, a tragedy.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2025

Alexander was about to explain that Aristophanes was the famous Greek dramatist who wrote satirical plays about the Peloponnesian War, but Penelope spoke first.

From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood

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