tetralogy
Americannoun
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tetralogies
plural
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a series of four related dramas, operas, novels, etc.
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a group of four dramas, three tragedies and one satyr play, performed consecutively at the festival of Dionysus in ancient Athens.
noun
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a series of four related works, as in drama or opera
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(in ancient Greece) a group of four dramas, the first three tragic and the last satiric
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pathol a group of four symptoms present in one disorder, esp Fallot's tetralogy
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of tetralogy
From the Greek word tetralogía, dating back to 1650–60. See tetra-, -logy
Vocabulary lists containing tetralogy
Ancient Greece: Mythology and Literature - Middle School
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Ancient Greece: Mythology and Literature - High 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:
“Die Walküre,” the second opera in the tetralogy, is Gustavo Dudamel’s last grand project of his tenure as Los Angeles Philharmonic music director, and last weekend Walt Disney Concert Hall became an L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2026
This one was a tetralogy: The Filipino champion and his Mexican rival met four times over eight years.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 16, 2022
Scurati’s rendering of the turbulent years from 1919 to 1925, the first volume in a projected tetralogy, is translated by Anne Milano Appel.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 6, 2022
The tetralogy is much admired in England but virtually unknown in America.
From New York Times ● Mar. 24, 2022
By that time it had taken its place with the Nibelung tragedy, having, in fact, a little less drawing power than the more popular dramas in the tetralogy.
From Chapters of Opera Being historical and critical observations and records concerning the lyric drama in New York from its earliest days down to the present time by Henry Edward Krehbiel
“Richard II” is also our introduction to the Henriad, two tetralogies that trace the path of the English throne from one Richard, through two Henrys, to a final Richard.
From New York Times ● Jul. 17, 2020
This blunts the company’s substantial ambition; the current alternating repertory is typical of an expansive approach that will be massively amplified next season with the eight plays of Shakespeare’s “War of the Roses” tetralogies.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 29, 2018
The second and more widely known of Shakespeare’s two history tetralogies, the cycle charts the tumult that roils the British kingdom under three successive rulers.
From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2016
Fifteen of Antiphon’s speeches are extant: twelve are mere school exercises on fictitious cases, divided into tetralogies, each consisting of two speeches for prosecution and defence—accusation, defence, reply, counter-reply; three refer to actual legal processes.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 2 "Anjar" to "Apollo" by Various
There were great projects, vast and impossible, tetralogies, decalogies, pretending to depict everything in music, covering whole worlds.
From Jean-Christophe, Volume I by Gilbert Cannan
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.
