tragicomedy
Americannoun
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a dramatic or other literary composition combining elements of both tragedy and comedy.
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an incident, or series of incidents, of mixed tragic and comic character.
noun
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a drama in which aspects of both tragedy and comedy are found
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the dramatic genre of works of this kind
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an event or incident having both comic and tragic aspects
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of tragicomedy
1570–80; < Late Latin tragicōmoedia, syncopated variant of Latin tragicocōmoedia. See tragic, -o-, comedy
Explanation
A play that blends elements of both tragedy and comedy is known as a tragicomedy. The remarkable thing about a tragicomedy is that it can make you laugh and cry. A tragicomedy might be a serious drama interspersed with funny moments that periodically lighten the mood, or a drama that has a happy ending. The Roman playwright Plautus is usually credited with coining the term in his play Amphitryon, when the character Mercury says, of a play-within-a-play featuring both gods and servants, "I will make it a mixture: let it be a tragicomedy."
Vocabulary lists containing tragicomedy
Reading: Literature - Literary Genres - High School
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Theater - Middle School
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Reading: Literature - Drama - 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:
His breakthrough came with the overnight success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", a tragicomedy centred around two minor characters from Shakespeare's "Hamlet".
From Barron's ● Nov. 29, 2025
“There’s a tragicomedy aspect” to Frenchies’ appearance, said the Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, who owns a rescue, Colette.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
“Memoir of a Snail” is a strange stop-motion tragicomedy straight out of Dickens that’s not about a gastropod but the grim life of a grief-stricken snail enthusiast.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 8, 2025
It is a tragicomedy that mixes historical fact with the author's imagination.
From BBC ● Jan. 3, 2025
And loyal confederates, Hamlet and I never revealed that we were authors of this tragicomedy.
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
The snobby film historian in me wanted to correct her, to find all of those instances of tragicomedies that anticipated Brooks’ film.
From Slate ● May 4, 2021
Nguyen cites Shakespearean tragicomedies and Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels as inspirations for “The Sympathizer” and “The Committed.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2021
His biting tragicomedies about romance, racism, workaday angst and trying to feel at home in the world keep coming back — as they should.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 29, 2019
His commitment to his high-concept tragicomedies is extraordinary.
From Washington Times ● May 11, 2016
In fact, Dryden was still writing and pleasing audiences with tragicomedies that contained the ingredients of the old heroic tragedy.
From The Female Wits by Anonymous
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.
