mel·o·dra·ma

(mĕl′ə-drä′mə, -drăm′ə)

a. A drama, such as a play, film, or television program, characterized by exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and interpersonal conflicts.

b. The dramatic genre characterized by this treatment.

2. Behavior or occurrences having melodramatic characteristics.

[Alteration of melodrame, from French mélodrame, spoken drama that includes some musical accompaniment, melodrama : Greek melos, song + French drame, drama (from Late Latin drāma; see drama).]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

melodrama

(ˈmɛləˌdrɑːmə)

1. (Film) a play, film, etc, characterized by extravagant action and emotion

2. (Theatre) (formerly) a romantic drama characterized by sensational incident, music, and song

3. overdramatic emotion or behaviour

4. (Theatre) a poem or part of a play or opera spoken to a musical accompaniment

[C19: from French mélodrame, from Greek melos song + French drame drama]

melodramatist n

melodramatic adj

ˌmelodraˈmatically adv

ˌmelodraˈmatics pl n

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

mel•o•dra•ma

(ˈmɛl əˌdrɑ mə, -ˌdræm ə)

n., pl. -mas.

1. a dramatic form that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action over characterization.

2. melodramatic behavior or events.

3. (in the 17th–early 19th centuries) a romantic drama with music interspersed.

[1800–10; < French mélodrame=mélo- (< Greek mélos song) + drame drama]

mel`o•dram′a•tist (-ˈdræm ə tɪst, -ˈdrɑ mə-) n.

melodrama

- Meaning "song play," it has a Greek origin—from melos, "music, song"—and it started out as a sensational play interspersed with songs.

melodrama

1. a sensational drama with events and emotions extravagantly expressed.
2. an opera or a stage play with songs and music, often of a romantic nature. — melodramatic, adj.

melodrama

A sensational romantic drama.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

melodrama - an extravagant comedy in which action is more salient than characterization

comedy - light and humorous drama with a happy ending

Translations

شَبيه بِمَسْرَحِيَّه عاطِفِيَّه

melodrama

Melodrama

mélo mélodrame

melodráma

melódrama

melodramma

melodramamelodramatiškaimelodramatiškas

melodrāmateātris

folkekomedie melodrama

melodráma

acıklı oyunmelodram

情节剧感情夸张的言行

melodrama

[ˈmeləʊˌdrɑːmə] N → melodrama m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

melodrama

[ˈmɛlədrɑːmə] n → mélodrame m

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

melodrama

n → Melodrama nt

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

melodrama

[ˈmɛləʊˌdrɑːmə] n → melodramma m

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

melodrama

(ˈmelədraːmə) noun

1. a (type of) play in which emotions and the goodness or wickedness of the characters are exaggerated greatly.

2. (an example of) behaviour similar to a play of this sort. He makes a melodrama out of everything that happens.

ˌmelodraˈmatic (-drəˈmӕ-) adjective

ˌmelodraˈmatically adverb

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Maggie always departed with raised spirits from the showing places of the melodrama. She rejoiced at the way in which the poor and virtuous eventually surmounted the wealthy and wicked.

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As I once more shouldered my pack and went my way, the character of the country side began to change, and, from a semi- pastoral heathiness and furziness, took on a wildness of aspect, which if indeed melodramatic was melodrama carried to the point of genius.

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"This is getting," he remarked, "a little like melodrama. I have no objection to being abused, even in my own garden, but there are limits to my patience.

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But the most distinctive and predominant forms of the middle and latter half of the century were, first, the Sentimental Comedy, whose origin may be roughly assigned to Steele, and, second, the domestic melodrama, which grew out of it.

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The weather being unusually mild at that time for the season of the year, there was no sleighing: but there were plenty of those vehicles in yards and by-places, and some of them, from the gorgeous quality of their decorations, might have 'gone on' without alteration as triumphal cars in a melodrama at Astley's.

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He seemed to remember seeing a melodrama in his boyhood the plot of which turned on that very point.

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We keeps Jerry under--what's it the heroine says in the melodrama? "Oh, cruel, cruel, S.P.

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One evening, tired with his experimenting, and not being able to elicit the facts he needed, he left his frogs and rabbits to some repose under their trying and mysterious dispensation of unexplained shocks, and went to finish his evening at the theatre of the Porte Saint Martin, where there was a melodrama which he had already seen several times; attracted, not by the ingenious work of the collaborating authors, but by an actress whose part it was to stab her lover, mistaking him for the evil-designing duke of the piece.

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He was clever in melodrama too, but too broad--too broad.

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Muscari had an eagle nose like Dante; his hair and neckerchief were dark and flowing; he carried a black cloak, and might almost have carried a black mask, so much did he bear with him a sort of Venetian melodrama. He acted as if a troubadour had still a definite social office, like a bishop.

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When the general urged them to their chivalric charge he half drew his sword from the scabbard; and then, as if ashamed of such melodrama, thrust it back again.

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{171} The interpretation of lines 126-143 is most dubious, and at best we are in a region of melodrama: cf., however, i.425, etc.

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