melodrama
Americannoun
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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:
To listen today to the song, which spent four weeks at No. 1 and earned a Grammy nomination for female pop vocal performance, is to assume you’ve already absorbed every drop of its melodrama.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
It’s a romance, a swashbuckler, a melodrama, a relatively light-handed critique of capitalism, demagoguery and the malleability of the crowd.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 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
By contrast, John M. Stahl’s stupendous 1939 melodrama “When Tomorrow Comes”—with Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne in a labor-relations tale turned hurricane-beset, star-crossed love story—was in sparkling black and white.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
He quirks his eyebrows and adds, with a touch of melodrama, “To decide our fate.”
From "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth
Unlike Douglas Sirk’s beautifully photographed Technicolor melodramas of the 1950s, or the subgenre’s more narratively contemplative, weepy entries from the late ’70s, the new guard of romantic tearjerkers doesn’t have a pronounced stylistic draw.
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
Under the umbrella of “Masterpiece,” a cavalcade of mysteries, dramas, melodramas and multipart adaptations of classic novels have come to these shores.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 29, 2025
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.
