tragic
Noun pluraltragics
Pluraltragics
- 1
- 2Relating to tragedy as a form of serious literary or dramatic work.
The tragic hero's fatal flaw drives the entire drama toward catastrophe.
Shakespeare's tragic plays explore guilt, ambition, and revenge.
Oppositecomic
Note
The sense closest to the word's origin: Greek tragikós, "of or relating to tragedy," built on trágos, "male goat," after the goat-satyrs of Dorian theater. It classifies rather than feels. A tragic hero or a tragic play belongs to the genre, and that is all the adjective claims. Whether the ending moves you is the business of the everyday meaning.
- 3Describing someone marked by having suffered a tragedy or grievous loss.
The tragic heroine of the news cycle had lost her entire family.
He became a tragic figure after the accident that ended his career.
Similarunfortunate, hapless, ill-fated, pitiable
Note
Tabloid headline English moves the adjective from the event to the person it happened to: the tragic widow, the tragic schoolgirl. Elsewhere, the everyday sense describes the death or disaster itself, and careful writers keep it there. Outside the tabloid register, calling a person tragic can sound sensational. It can also sound, by accident, like the slang put-down.
- 4Embarrassingly unfashionable or hopelessly trying too hard; cringeworthy and lacking self-awareness.
Their desperate bid to seem relevant came across as utterly tragic.
She thought the matching couple costumes were romantic, but her friends found them tragic.
Similarpathetic, embarrassing, cringeworthy, lame, sad
Note
Slang that turns grief into a verdict on style. It passes judgment on a dress, a haircut, or a man chasing a crowd half his age. It sits mostly after the verb (that dress is tragic, he's pretty tragic these days), and it mocks rather than mourns. Context separates it from the sad sense. Nobody's death is tragic in this way.
- 5An obsessively devoted fan or enthusiast; a superfan.
Only a true tragic would memorize every player's statistics going back decades.
The convention was packed with tragics dressed as their favorite characters.
Similarfanatic, diehard, superfan, devotee, buff
Note
Australian sports talk made it a noun of devotion: a footy tragic, a Rabbitohs tragic, a football tragic. The team or game usually comes first as a modifier, though "a tragic of rugby league" works too. The teasing is affectionate: the fan's obsession is so complete it is almost pitiable. In 2011 the label was pinned on Russell Crowe, the Rabbitohs' benefactor.
Less common meanings
- 6A tragedy; a serious dramatic work ending in disaster.
Note
Here the noun names the play rather than its author: a tragic was a tragedy, a work for the stage. It too is obsolete. Modern readers take "the tragic" with an article as an abstract quality, as in the tragic and the comic. Anyone quoting older drama criticism should expect readers to miss that a single play is meant.
- 7A writer of tragedies; a dramatist who composes tragic works.
Note
A noun that made the adjective name a person: the tragic was the dramatist who wrote tragedies. The usage is obsolete, and reviving it now would mislead. The noun lives on only in the Australian "superfan" sense, so call a playwright a tragic today and a reader will picture an obsessed fan, not an author.
Showing meanings only.
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Origin
From Ancient Greek τραγικός (tragikós, "relating to tragedy"), which came from τράγος (trágos, "male goat"), a reference to the goat-satyrs in the theatrical plays of the Dorians.