trag·i·com·e·dy

(trăj′ĭ-kŏm′ĭ-dē)

n. pl. trag·i·com·e·dies

1. A work of fiction, as a play, film, or novel, combining elements of tragedy and comedy.

2. The genre made up of such works.

3. An incident or situation having both comic and tragic elements.

[French tragicomédie, from Italian tragicommedia, from Late Latin tragicōmoedia, short for Latin tragicocōmoedia : tragicus, tragic; see tragic + cōmoedia, comedy; see comedy.]

trag′i·com′ic (-kŏm′ĭk), trag′i·com′i·cal (-ĭ-kəl) adj.

trag′i·com′i·cal·ly adv.

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.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.	1.	tragicomic - of or relating to or characteristic of tragicomedy; "a playwright specializing in tragicomic drama" drama - the literary genre of works intended for the theater
	2.	tragicomic - manifesting both tragic and comic aspects; "the tragicomic disparity...between's man's aspirations and his accomplishments"- B.R.Redman tragicomical sad - experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness; "feeling sad because his dog had died"; "Better by far that you should forget and smile / Than that you should remember and be sad"- Christina Rossetti
	3.	tragicomic - having pathetic as well as ludicrous characteristics; "her life...presented itself to me as a tragicomical adventure"--Joseph Conrad tragicomical humorous, humourous - full of or characterized by humor; "humorous stories"; "humorous cartoons"; "in a humorous vein"

Translations

tragicomique

tragicomic

[ˈtrædʒɪˈkɒmɪk] ADJ → tragicómico

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

tragicomic

adj → tragikomisch

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

tragicomic

[ˌtrædʒɪˈkɒmɪk] adj → tragicomico/a

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

Andrew Scott, dubbed Fleabag's Hot Priest, was awarded the gong for standout performance of the year, collecting it from the tragicomic series' creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

Egerton honoured at GQ Men Of The Year awards

Like Cervantes, Rushdie is able to balance his commentary with a voice full of tragicomic fervor, which makes the novel a thrilling adventure on a sentence-by-sentence level and another triumph for Rushdie.

Quichotte

The stunned audience remained glued to their seats for over an hour as they followed a dance duo creating a tragicomic atmosphere replete with poetry at Katara's drama theatre on Wednesday evening.

Mimes, tango bring human comedy to life at Katara

Since then it has been translated and performed in 30 countries and it keeps being produced, due to its profound human angle but also to the bitter humour that renders it timeless and up to date in a tragicomic way.

A play on a bench

Hanif demonstrates his finesse by dovetailing the tenebrous story of war with comic yet insightful scenes that bring tragicomic effects to the novel.

Mohammed Hanif: Red Birds

The tragicomic story tells of father-son relationships, sibling quarrels, racism, the opioid crisis, cyber-spies and the end of the world.

New Salman Rushdie novel, Quichotte, to be published by Jonathan Cape this August

sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe in 1955, the 27 cm (11 inches) high, 3.7 kg (8 pound) tragicomic masks have been hand-made at New Pro Foundries since the 1970s.

As awards race heats up, molten metal is forged into BAFTA statues

His new album, Tree of Forgiveness, is full of tragicomic dry humor about life's tribulations, set to the ambience of an old country saloon, complete with a honky-tonk piano in the corner.

Tree of Forgiveness

Indian playwright Shishir Kurup re-imagines William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" as an examination of intolerance between Hindus and Muslims in present-day Culver City, California, in his tragicomic play "Merchant on Venice." Rasaka and Vitalist theater companies collaborated on the revival of the play, which premiered in 2007 at Silk Road Rising.

Timely subject

Where did the male hero of the Book of Esther emerge from, and how did he come to play the major role he plays in its tragicomic, playful plot?

Mordechai: Snoop, Loafer, Busybody, Savior

She looks at Alison BechdelAEs Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Helene CixousAE Hyperdream, Marguerite DurasAE The Lover, Pat BarkerAEs Regeneration Trilogy, and Alexis WrightAEs Carpentaria and The Swan Book, using them to confront the systematic denial of trauma as a cultural operation and showing how these books serve as political accounts, cultural critique, and political action.

The Poetics of Transgenerational Trauma

Both courses of action have their tragicomic moments that temper Lenny's dark misfortune and will engage fans of realistic fiction.

Sher, Abby. All the Ways the World Can End