tragedy
NounOpen English WordNet
Noun (2)tragedies
- an event resulting in great loss and misfortune“the whole city was affected by the irremediable calamity”“the earthquake was a disaster”Synonyms: calamitycatastrophedisastercataclysmType of misfortune, bad luckKinds tsunami, act of God, meltdown, famine, apocalypse, plague, tidal wave, kiss of death, visitation
- drama in which the protagonist is overcome by some superior force or circumstance; excites terror or pityOpposite comedyType of dramaKinds tragicomedy
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Translations
Noun drama or similar work
- Spanish
- tragedia
- French
- tragédie
- German
- Tragödie
- Italian
- tragedia
- Portuguese
- tragédia
- Turkish
- trajedi
- Russian
- траге́дия tragédija
- Arabic
- تْرَاجِيدْيَا trājīdyā
- Chinese
- 悲剧 bēijù
- Japanese
- 悲劇 higeki
24 more languages
- Dutch
- tragedie
- Polish
- tragedia
- Swedish
- tragedi
- Greek
- τραγωδία tragodía
- Korean
- 비극 bigeuk
- Vietnamese
- bi kịch
- Hungarian
- tragédia
- Portuguese (PT)
- tragédia
- Chinese (Trad.)
- 悲劇 bēijù
- Albanian
- tragjedi
- Catalan
- tragèdia
- Czech
- tragédie
- Danish
- tragedie
- Esperanto
- tragedio
- Estonian
- tragöödia
- Finnish
- tragedia
- Georgian
- ტრაგედია ṭragedia
- Hebrew
- טְרָגֶדְיָה tragédya
- Icelandic
- harmleikur
- Latvian
- traģēdija
- Lithuanian
- tragedija
- Norwegian
- tragedie
- Romanian
- tragedie
- Serbo-Croatian
- tragedija
The main translation for each meaning, from the langtolang.com multilingual dictionary. Each word links to its full entry there.
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: OE. tragedie, OF. tragedie, F. tragédie, L. tragoedia, Gr. …, fr. … a tragic poet and singer, originally, a goat singer; … a goat (perhaps akin to … to gnaw, nibble, eat, and E. trout) + … to sing; from the oldest tragedies being exhibited when a goat was sacrificed, or because a goat was the prize, or because the actors were clothed in goatskins. See Ode.
1. A dramatic poem, composed in elevated style, representing a signal action performed by some person or persons, and having a fatal issue; that species of drama which represents the sad or terrible phases of character and life.
Tragedy is to say a certain storie, As olde bookes maken us memorie, Of him that stood in great prosperitee And is yfallen out of high degree Into misery and endeth wretchedly.— Geoffrey Chaucer
All our tragedies are of kings and princes.— Taylor, Jeremy
tragedy is poetry in its deepest earnest; comedy is poetry in unlimited jest.— Samuel T. Coleridge
2. A fatal and mournful event; any event in which human lives are lost by human violence, more especially by unauthorized violence.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54