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View synonyms for melodrama

melodrama

[ mel-uh-drah-muh, -dram-uh ]

noun

  1. a dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization.
  2. melodramatic behavior or events.
  3. (in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries) a romantic dramatic composition with music interspersed.


melodrama

/ ˈmɛləˌdrɑːmə; ˌmɛlədrəˈmætɪk; ˌmɛləˈdræmətɪst /

noun

  1. a play, film, etc, characterized by extravagant action and emotion
  2. (formerly) a romantic drama characterized by sensational incident, music, and song
  3. overdramatic emotion or behaviour
  4. a poem or part of a play or opera spoken to a musical accompaniment


melodrama

  1. A play or film in which the plot is often sensational and the characters may display exaggerated emotion.


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Derived Forms

  • ˌmelodraˈmatics, noun:plural
  • melodramatist, noun
  • ˌmelodraˈmatically, adverb
  • melodramatic, adjective

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Other Words From

  • mel·o·dram·a·tist [mel-, uh, -, dram, -, uh, -tist, -, drah, -m, uh, -], noun
  • mini·melo·drama noun

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Word History and Origins

Origin of melodrama1

1800–10; < French mélodrame, equivalent to mélo- (< Greek mélos song) + drame drama

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Word History and Origins

Origin of melodrama1

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

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Example Sentences

In one very funny scene, Linda weeps helplessly at a Paris train station as a suitor-to-be roars with laughter at her melodrama.

From Time

In the meantime, after two years of inconclusive elections and political melodrama, many Israelis will welcome a return to some sense of normalcy.

From Time

The book is also a medical melodrama, a family mystery and a meditation on .

In footage from that moment, you can see Barr speak to the commander, after which the commander’s head droops with seemingly intentional melodrama.

Compared with the melodrama of many Masters, Matsuyama’s 1-over-par 73 on Sunday, during which he often had a five-shot lead, might seem an entertaining but not hair-raising Masters finale.

Hitchcock saw human behavior fresh, even in a tired form like melodrama.

The Lotus and the Storm turns out to be a grand, haunted melodrama with elements of camp, delivered in fragmentary reveries.

The deviating family melodrama has, thankfully, been replaced by shrewd spycraft.

The man of melodrama was not perceived as a fit for the postwar world.

But Precious—a modern melodrama with a hugely sympathetic HIV-positive teen at its heart, was a hit with critics and audiences.

Beneath this melodrama, the circumstances are recounted at great length, and some halting verses conclude the mournful narration.

The play may be pure comedy, comedy-drama, tragedyeven farceor melodrama.

Then it is sung softly like the farmhand quartettes do in the rural melodrama outside the old homestead in harvest time.

Valmond was alive to it all, almost too alive, for at first the flamboyancy of his spirit touched him off with melodrama.

The kaimakam had a taste for melodrama, and had the prisoners brought before him immediately.

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melodizemelodramatic