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melodramatic

[mel-uh-druh-mat-ik]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective

of, like, or befitting melodrama.

exaggerated and emotional or sentimental; sensational or sensationalized; overdramatic.

noun

melodramatics, melodramatic writing or behavior.

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Melodramatic has a plethora of syllables.

So is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Does it mean:

a white, crystalline, water-insoluble, powerful high explosive, C3H6N6O6, used chiefly in bombs and shells.

an obscure term ostensibly referring to a lung disease caused by silica dust, sometimes cited as one of the longest words in the English language.

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Origin:
1810–20; melodrama + (drama)tic

Related forms

mel·o·dra·mat·i·cal·ly, adverb

non·mel·o·dra·mat·ic, adjective

non·mel·o·dra·mat·i·cal·ly, adverb

un·mel·o·dra·mat·ic, adjective

un·mel·o·dra·mat·i·cal·ly, adverb

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To melodramatic

Example Sentences

She was a natural storyteller, dramatic, even melodramatic.

Though the plotting is a bit too transparent and the ending shamelessly melodramatic, readers will enjoy the excitement.

Brothers still has a fondness for chaos, veering from the silly in one scene to the melodramatic in the next.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

melodrama (ˈmɛləˌdrɑːmə)

—n
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

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

melodramatist

—n

melodramatic

—*adj*

melodramatics

—*pl n*

melodra'matically

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

melodramatic

1816, from melodrama on model of dramatic.

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dime novel operatic

Matching Quote

"The American novel tends to rest in contradictions and among extreme ranges of experience. When it attempts to resolve contradictions, it does so in oblique, morally equivocal ways. As a general rule, it does so either in melodramatic actions or in pastoral idylls, although intermixed with both one may find the stirring instabilities of "American humor." These qualities constitute the uniqueness of that branch of the novelistic tradi tion which has flourished in this country. They help to account for the strong element of "romance" in the American "novel." By contrast, the English novel has followed a middle way. It is notable for its great practical sanity, its powerful, engrossing composition of wide ranges of experience into a moral centrality and equability of judgment. Oddity, distortion of personality, dislocations of normal life, recklessness of behavior—these the English novel has included. Yet the profound poetry of disorder we find in the American novel is missing, with rare exceptions, from the English."

-Richard Chase

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