high comedy

American  

noun

1. comedy dealing with polite society, characterized by sophisticated, witty dialogue and an intricate plot.

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high comedy British  

noun

1. comedy set largely among cultured and articulate people and featuring witty dialogue Compare low comedy

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Other Word Forms

• high comedian
  noun

Etymology

Origin of high comedy

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

high comedy

I wonder if that was part of your education in finding that tension between the sorrow and the high comedy?

From Salon ● Mar. 30, 2023

And what rushes in to fill the vacuum is a host of increasingly deranged hypotheticals, and also what now passes for high comedy at the Supreme Court.

From Slate ● Dec. 5, 2022

Williams was careful to make that moment of high comedy fit the tone.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2022

For golf fans of a certain age, televised interviews with Masters winners by Augusta National chairmen were once considered high comedy.

From Golf Digest ● Apr. 6, 2020

Voltaire's incomparable gift of satirical wit did not make him a writer of high comedy: he could be grotesque without lightness or brightness.

From A History of French Literature Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. by Gosse, Edmund