melodrama
Americannoun
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melodramas
plural
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a dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization.
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melodramatic behavior or events.
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(in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries) a romantic dramatic composition with music interspersed.
noun
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a play, film, etc, characterized by extravagant action and emotion
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(formerly) a romantic drama characterized by sensational incident, music, and song
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overdramatic emotion or behaviour
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a poem or part of a play or opera spoken to a musical accompaniment
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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melodramatistnoun
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minimelodramanoun
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melodramaticsplural noun
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melodramaticadjective
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melodramaticallyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of melodrama
1800–10; < French mélodrame, equivalent to mélo- (< Greek mélos song) + drame drama
Explanation
A melodrama is a show or story with overly dramatic characters and plot lines. Many people like to escape their own troubles by watching what the characters go through on a weekly television melodrama. A melodrama has a thrilling plot, with many extreme twists, suspense, and plenty of romance. Soap operas and popular films can often be described as melodramas, full of the tension and excitement that draws a viewer in. Anything but mellow, melodrama comes from the Greek word melos, song, and the French drame, drama — because the original melodramas of the early 1800s were dramatic plays that included songs and music.
Vocabulary lists containing melodrama
Drama Terminology
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Literary Genres - Advanced
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Reading: Literature - Drama - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
For those who are watching the show for the plot, get ready to yeehaw about all the melodrama that’s about to hit your screen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
Tom Nolan praises this “gritty melodrama of familial love and hereditary tragedy.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
A peak of pop excess, Raye's second full-length album is a 73-minute melodrama, sprinkled with golden age Hollywood glamour, show-stopping ballads, tongue twisting wordplay and genre smashing handbrake turns.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
They were complicated, secretive, compulsive and potentially deadly, and the film’s gripping melodrama was a stark contrast to any glamorous tabloid portrayal.
From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2026
At the California Labor School a forceful and perceptive teacher quickly and unceremoniously separated me from melodrama.
From "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou
Like the Sirkian melodramas of yesteryear, we go see movies like “Reminders of Him” because they’re highly entertaining — and, more often than not, decently made.
From Salon ● Mar. 19, 2026
Market participants have come to assume they will come out of these recurring melodramas intact.
From Barron's ● Jan. 24, 2026
Many things happen, never for too long; all kinds of maladies, medications and melodramas are involved.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 6, 2026
The melodramas of 1940s and ’50s, with “The Red Shoes” as the pre-eminent example, tended to feature dancers suffering for their art.
From New York Times ● Apr. 22, 2024
From the look of it, one of her favorite Israeli melodramas.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
