tragedy
trag·edy (traj′ə dē)
noun pl. -·dies
- a serious play or drama typically dealing with the problems of a central character, leading to an unhappy or disastrous ending brought on, as in ancient drama, by fate and a tragic flaw in this character, or, in modern drama, usually by moral weakness, psychological maladjustment, or social pressures
- such plays collectively
- the branch of drama having to do with such plays
- the writing, acting, or theoretical principles of this kind of drama
- a novel or other literary work with similar characteristics
- the tragic element of such a literary work, or of a real event
- a very sad or tragic event or sequence of events; disaster
Etymology: ME tragedie < MFr < L tragoedia < Gr tragōidia, tragedy, lit., the song of the goat < tragos, goat ( < IE *treg-, to gnaw < base *ter-, to rub, grind > throw) + ōidē, song (see ode): so named ? because of the goatskin dress of the performers, representing satyrs
tragedy
n.
Unhappy fate
lot, bad fortune, misfortune, doom, bad end, no good end. Antonyms
happiness*, fortune, success. A tragic event or series of events
disaster, catastrophe, misfortune, adversity, affliction, hardship, struggle, misadventure, curse, blight, humiliation, wreck, failure, one blow after another*, hard knocks*; see also difficulty 1, 2, catastrophe.Antonyms
success*, prosperity, good fortune. An artistic creation climaxed by catastrophe
novel, play, tragic poem, melodrama, tragic drama, Elizabethan tragedy, Greek tragedy, French classic tragedy; see also drama 1.Antonyms
comedy*, satire, burlesque.
Converse of object
- avert: If so, could the filling of that gap avert the greatest tragedies ever to face humankind?
- drown: A little further on they came on a drowning tragedy.
- prevent: This report is published to help prevent further tragedies, not to blame.
- commemorate: AIDS activists have sought to construct monuments to commemorate the tragedy of AIDS sufferers.
- suffer: Before he sat the Natural Science Tripos in 1881 he suffered a tragedy when his brother Dante died suddenly.
- forget: Her investigations involve secrets, scandals and supernatural happenings; forgotten tragedies and buried crimes.
Converse of subject
- affect: Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and families affected by the horrendous tragedy of 7.7.
Adjective modifier
- Greek: Exercise over, he decides to spend the day reading Greek tragedy.
- terrible: Of course, he'd heard about the terrible tragedy of the young farm girl.
- Shakespearean: Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy [ 1904 ] .
- Jacobean: Moreover, Heywood did something unique for his Jacobean tragedy.
- appalling: For many those events have brought sudden and appalling tragedy.
- Shakespearian: Customer Rating: Review Summary: Macbeth does murder sleep - finish it tonight Review: One of the great Shakespearian tragedies.
Modifies a noun
- strike: Only when tragedy strikes does life become intense for a while.
Noun used with modifier
- thalidomide: Yet the thalidomide tragedy should have alerted governments to the need for superior methods of safety evaluation.
- revenge: It is unclear how Simkin would limit the parameters of the revenge tragedy genre, if at all.
- tsunami: Asia-Pacific growth was stunted at 2.5 % in the aftermath of the tsunami tragedy.
- stadium: This culminated in the Heysel stadium tragedy of 1985, when violence by English hooligans led to the deaths of over 30 Italian fans.
Preposition: of
- commons: The risk inherent in any notion of war in space of a " tragedy of the commons " is utterly compelling.
- proportion: A tragedy of unknown proportions is unfolding in these oil areas.
The power that created the poodle, the platypus and people has an integrated sense of both comedyand tragedy.
One cannot balance tragedy in the scales Unless one weighs it with the tragic heart.
Comedy, I imagine, is harder to do consistently than tragedy, but I like it spiced in the wine of sadness.
Farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is.
Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that's too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.
Hegel says somewhere that all great events and personalities in the world reappear in one fashion or another. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.
Mr Creston Clarke played King Lear at theTabor Grand last night. All through five acts of Shakespeare's tragedy he played the king as though under momentary apprehension that someone else was about to play the ace.
Go, litel bok, go, litel myn tragedye, Ther God thi makere yet, er that he dye, So sende myght to make in som comedye!
A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. A new era is upon us We have had our last chance. If we do not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door.
The great tragedy of Scienceöthe slaying of a beautiful hypothesis byan ugly fact.
Life is not all Beer and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on. Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an ultimate decency of things: ay, and if I woke in hell, should still believe it!
Fate wrote her a most tremendous tragedy, and she played it in tights.
Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.
: I suppose society is wonderfully delightful! :To be in it is merelya bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.
We participate in a tragedy; at a comedy we only look.
A perfect tragedy is the noblest production of human nature.
Religion isthetragedy of mankind But I do know, from the inside as well as from personal observation, that religion appeals to something deep and irrational and strong within us, and that is what makes it so dangerous.
Onegoestoseeatragedy tobe moved, tothe opera one goes either for want of any other interest or to facilitate digestion.
At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all.
The command 'Thou shalt not kill'must be binding on the conscience of humanity if the terrible tragedy and destiny of Cain is not to be repeated.
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
Dinner at the Huntercombes possessed 'only two dramatic featuresöthe wine was a farce and the food a tragedy.'
The true aristocracyand the true proletariat of the world are both in understanding with tragedy. To them it is the fundamental principle of God, and the key, the minor key, to existence. They differ in this way from the bourgeoisie of all classes, who deny tragedy, who will not tolerate it, and to whom the word tragedy means in itself unpleasantness.
I am not interested in relationships of color or form or anything else I am interested only in expressing the basic human emotionsötragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so onöand the fact that lots of people breakdown and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate with those basic human emotions. The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point!
We donot expect peopletobe deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind.
Tragedy isthus a representationof anactionthat isworth serious attention, complete in itself and of some amplitudeby means of pityand fear bringing about the purgation of such emotions.
Tragedy is if I cut my finger.Comedy is if I walk into an open sewer and die.
The tragedy of life is not that man loses, but that he almost wins.
Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poornot that men are wickedbut that men know so little of men.
It is the tragedy of the world that no one knows what he doesn't know; and the less a man knows, the more sure he is that he knows everything.
Le drame tient de la trage¤ die par la peinture des passions et de la come¤ die par la peinture des caracte' res. Le drame est la troisie' me grande forme de l'art. Indrama, tragedy paintsthepassions and comedy paints characters. Drama is the third great form of art.
You see tragedy requires persons of heroic stature. It works on the principle of people being more than humanösuper-humanöand also being only too human. But there just aren't many great figures around now, so the tragic mechanisms can't work.
The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
It would indeed be the ultimate tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more noble than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump.
Le pire drame pour un poe' te, c'est d'e" tre admire¤ par malentendu. The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.
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