tragicomedy
Americannoun
plural
tragicomedies-
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
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.
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
Her work is not strictly autobiographical, but as in the plays of Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee or Adrienne Kennedy, she has a canny way of rearranging the emotional furniture of her lived experience into tragicomedy.
From New York Times • Apr. 25, 2024
And loyal confederates, Hamlet and I never revealed that we were authors of this tragicomedy.
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
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.
