comedy
Pluralcomedies (some meanings)
- 1Entertainment that relies on jokes, satire, or humorous performance to amuse people.
He built a career in comedy, performing stand-up in clubs across the country.
The festival showcases comedy in all its forms, from sketches to improv.
Similarhumor
- 2The genre comprising films, plays, and other works that are humorous or satirical in aim.
Critics often treat comedy as less serious than drama, though writing it is just as demanding.
The director moved from horror into comedy with her latest feature.
Note
A label that crosses media: theater, film, television and broadcasting all sort their work under it. Because it names a whole field, it usually stands without an article and pairs with other genre names, as in moving from horror into comedy. It can also be counted when one strand of the field is set beside another, but the bare uncountable form is the safer default.
- 3A play, movie, or similar dramatic production that treats its subject with lighthearted humor or satire.
Her new comedy follows three roommates through a chaotic summer.
The theater is staging a comedy about mistaken identities and tangled romances.
Oppositetragedy
Note
The everyday, countable sense names one work at a time, whether it plays on stage, screen or radio. It takes articles and plurals like any noun: a comedy, two comedies, her latest comedy. That sets it apart from the genre as a whole, which usually goes without an article: she writes comedy. Here tone defines the work, humorous or satirical, rather than the happy ending of the light, happily ending play.
- 4A light, amusing play that ends happily.
The troupe opened the season with a frothy comedy about a runaway bride.
Audiences left the comedy smiling at its cheerful, tidy ending.
Oppositetragedy
- 5The art and craft of writing and constructing comedy that succeeds in being funny.
Mastering comedy demands precise timing and a feel for surprise.
He teaches comedy at a drama school, focusing on how a joke is built.
- 6
- 7A narrative poem that moves toward an agreeable ending, such as Dante's Divine Comedy.
Dante's comedy ends not in ruin but in the radiant vision of paradise.
Scholars read the comedy as a journey from despair toward divine love.
Note
Medieval Europe used the word for a shape of story, not a kind of joke. A comedy was a narrative poem that ends well. That is why Dante's Divine Comedy, which moves from despair to paradise, carries the name without setting out to be funny. When reading medieval titles, take comedy to describe the ending, and set aside the humorous stage sense.
- 8A festive song of celebration or revelry sung by a chorus, especially in ancient Greece.
After the wine flowed, the revelers raised a loud comedy through the moonlit streets.
Each spring festival opened with a comedy sung by the assembled chorus.
Note
Here the word is at its root, and its history explains everything that follows. Ancient Greek kōmōidía joined kômos, a revel or band of carousers, to a word for song or singer, both from aeídō, "I sing." Laughter and stagecraft came later. At first a comedy was simply what revelers sang. It is a historical term, used to describe ancient festival life, not a current name for a song.
Practice
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Origin
The word came through Middle English "comedie" and Middle French "comedie" from Latin "cōmoedia," itself from Ancient Greek κωμῳδία (kōmōidía). This combined κῶμος (kômos, “revel, carousing”) with either ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”) or ἀοιδός (aoidós, “singer, bard”), both from ἀείδω (aeídō, “I sing”). It is a doublet of commedia.