drama


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dra·ma

 (drä′mə, drăm′ə)
n.
1.
a. A prose or verse composition, especially one telling a serious story, that is intended for representation by actors impersonating the characters and performing the dialogue and action.
b. A serious narrative work or program for television, radio, or the cinema.
2. Theatrical plays of a particular kind or period: Elizabethan drama.
3. The art or practice of writing or producing dramatic works.
4. A situation or succession of events in real life having the dramatic progression or emotional effect characteristic of a play: the drama of the prisoner's escape and recapture.
5. The quality or condition of being dramatic: a summit meeting full of drama.

[Late Latin drāma, drāmat-, from Greek, from drān, to do, perform.]
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.

drama

(ˈdrɑːmə)
n
1. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) a work to be performed by actors on stage, radio, or television; play
2. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) the genre of literature represented by works intended for the stage
3. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) the art of the writing and production of plays
4. a situation or sequence of events that is highly emotional, tragic, or turbulent
[C17: from Late Latin: a play, from Greek: something performed, from drān to do]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

dra•ma

(ˈdrɑ mə, ˈdræm ə)

n., pl. -mas.
1. a prose or verse composition presenting in dialogue and action a story involving conflict or contrast of characters, intended to be performed on the stage; play.
2. dramatic art or literature in general.
3. any event or series of events having vivid, conflicting elements that capture one's interest.
4. the quality of being dramatic.
[1505–15; < Late Latin < Greek drâma consequential act, action (of a play) =drâ(n) to do + -ma n. suffix of result]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

Drama


Classical Drama, recognition or discovery, as of a disguised character, one thought to be lost, or a critical fact.
(in ancient Greek choral odes) 1. the response made to a preceding strophe, while the chorus is moving from left to right.
2. the movement of the chorus. Cf. strophe. See also verse. — antistrophic, antistrophal, adj.
the climax of a play or other dramatic representation; that part preceding the catastrophe, where the action is at its height.
(in the Aristotelian concept of art, especially with reference to tragic drama) the purging of the emotions, traditionally said to be those of pity and fear. See also psychology.
a drama expressed in dance or with dance as an integral part of its content and form.
the theories, attitudes, and techniques of a group of Soviet writers of the 1920s who attempted to reconcile ideological beliefs with technical achievement, especially in stage design, where effects produced were geometrical and nonrepresentational. — constructivist, n., adj.
the final resolution of the plot, following the climax.
the device of resolving dramatic action by the introduction of an unexpected, improbable, or forced character or incident.
Greek Drama, the role that is second in importance to that of the protagonist, or main character.
a dramatic monologue.
the art of writing or producing plays. — dramaturge, dramaturgist, n.
a play or drama for two characters or actors.
a dialogue for two people, especially as a complete dramatic performance or as part of one.
1. the final section of a literary work, often added by way of explanation, comment, etc.
2. a closing speech in a play, often delivered after the completion of the main action. — epilogistic, adj.
the main action of a drama, leading up to the catastrophe. Cf. protasis.
1. Greek Drama, the catastrophe or conclusion of a play.
2. Roman Drama, a comical or satirical piece added at the end of a play.
the occupation of actors; playacting.
1. a sensational drama with events and emotions extravagantly expressed.
2. an opera or a stage play with songs and music, often of a romantic nature. — melodramatic, adj.
a drama written for one actor or character. — monodramatic, adj.
Literature. a sudden change in the course of events, especially in dramatic works.
a photoplay or dramatic narrative illustrated with or related through photographs.
the principal character in the drama.
Classical Drama, the first part of a play, when the characters are introduced. Cf. epitasis. See also grammar; wisdom. — protatic, adj.
a speech in which a character reveals his thoughts to the audience but not to other characters in the play. — soliloquist, n.
the art or skill of producing or staging plays.
dialogue in single alternating lines, as found in ancient Greek drama. — stichomythic, adj.
that part of the ancient Greek choral odes sung by the chorus while moving from right to left. Cf. antistrophe. — strophic, adj.
Greek Drama, a series of four dramas, three of them tragedies and one a satyr-play; hence, any series of four related works, literary, dramatic, operatic, etc.
the art of the theater or of acting. — theatrical, n., adj.
a mania for the theater.
-Ologies & -Isms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.drama - a dramatic work intended for performance by actors on a stagedrama - a dramatic work intended for performance by actors on a stage; "he wrote several plays but only one was produced on Broadway"
drama - the literary genre of works intended for the theater
stage direction - an instruction written as part of the script of a play
dramatic composition, dramatic work - a play for performance on the stage or television or in a movie etc.
Grand Guignol - a play of a macabre or horrific nature
theater of the absurd - plays stressing the irrational or illogical aspects of life, usually to show that modern life is pointless; "Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco have written plays for the theater of the absurd"
playlet - a short play
act - a subdivision of a play or opera or ballet
miracle play - a medieval play representing episodes from the life of a saint or martyr
morality play - an allegorical play popular in the 15th and 16th centuries; characters personified virtues and vices
mystery play - a medieval play representing episodes from the life of Christ
Passion play - a play representing the Passion of Christ
satyr play - an ancient Greek burlesque with a chorus of satyrs
2.drama - an episode that is turbulent or highly emotional
episode - a happening that is distinctive in a series of related events
night terror - an emotional episode (usually in young children) in which the person awakens in terror with feelings of anxiety and fear but is unable to remember any incident that might have provoked those feelings
3.drama - the literary genre of works intended for the theater
warhorse - a work of art (composition or drama) that is part of the standard repertory but has become hackneyed from much repetition
drama, dramatic play, play - a dramatic work intended for performance by actors on a stage; "he wrote several plays but only one was produced on Broadway"
closet drama - drama more suitable for reading that for performing
comedy - light and humorous drama with a happy ending
tragedy - drama in which the protagonist is overcome by some superior force or circumstance; excites terror or pity
black humor, black humour - the juxtaposition of morbid and farcical elements (in writing or drama) to give a disturbing effect
literary genre, writing style, genre - a style of expressing yourself in writing
likable, likeable, appealing, sympathetic - (of characters in literature or drama) evoking empathic or sympathetic feelings; "the sympathetic characters in the play"
unappealing, unlikable, unlikeable, unsympathetic - (of characters in literature or drama) tending to evoke antipathetic feelings; "all the characters were peculiarly unsympathetic"
tragic - of or relating to or characteristic of tragedy; "tragic hero"
comic - of or relating to or characteristic of comedy; "comic hero"
tragicomic - of or relating to or characteristic of tragicomedy; "a playwright specializing in tragicomic drama"
4.drama - the quality of being arresting or highly emotional
emotionalism, emotionality - emotional nature or quality
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

drama

noun
1. play, show, stage show, stage play, dramatization, theatrical piece He acted in radio dramas.
2. theatre, acting, dramatic art, stagecraft, dramaturgy, Thespian art He knew nothing of Greek drama.
3. excitement, crisis, dramatics, spectacle, turmoil, histrionics, theatrics the drama of a hostage release
Quotations
"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out" [Alfred Hitchcock]
"The drama is make-believe. It does not deal with the truth but with effect" [W. Somerset Maugham The Summing Up]
"Life is full of internal dramas, instantaneous and sensational, played to an audience of one" [Anthony Powell]
see theatre terms

Drama

Types of drama  comedy, comedy of manners, commedia dell'arte, costume piece or costume drama, farce, Grand Guignol, Jacobean, kabuki, Kathakali, kitchen sink, melodrama, morality play, mystery play, No or Noh, passion play, Restoration Comedy, revenge tragedy, shadow play, situation comedy or sitcom, sketch, soap opera, street theatre, theatre of cruelty, theatre of the absurd, tragedy, tragicomedy
Dramatists  Aeschylus (Greek), Edward Albee (U.S.), Robert Amos (Australian), Jean Anouilh (French), Aristophanes (Greek), Alan Ayckbourn (English), Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (French), Francis Beaumont (English), Samuel Beckett (Irish), Brendan Behan (Irish), Richard Beynon (Australian), Alan Bleasdale (English), Edward Bond (English), Bertolt Brecht (German), Eugene Brieux (French), Pedro Calderón de la Barca (Spanish), George Chapman (English), Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian), William Congreve (English), Pierre Corneille (French), Noël (Pierce) Coward (English), Thomas Dekker (English), John Dryden (English), T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot (U.S.-British), Louis Esson (Australian), Euripides (Greek), John Fletcher (English), Dario Fo (Italian), John Ford (English), Brian Friel (Irish), John Galsworthy (English), Jean Genet (French), W(illiam) S(chwenk) Gilbert (English), (Hippolyte) Jean Giraudoux (French), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German), Nikolai Gogol (Russian), Oliver Goldsmith (Irish), Oriel Gray (Australian), Robert Greene (English), David Hare (English), Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (German), Václav Havel (Czech), Alfred Hayes (U.S.), (Christian) Friedrich Hebbel (German), Dorthy Hewett (Australian), Thomas Heywood (English), Jack Hibberd (Australian), Sidney Howard (U.S.), Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian), William Motter Inge (U.S.), Eugène Ionesco (Romanian-French), Ben Jonson (English), George Kaiser (German), Tony Kushner (U.S.), Thomas Kyd (English), Ray Lawler (Australian), Liz Lochhead (Scottish), Lope de Vega (Spanish), Federico Garcia Lorca (Spanish), Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgian), David Mamet (U.S.), Christopher Marlowe (English), John Marston (English), Menander (Greek), Arthur Miller (U.S.), Molière (French), Barry Oakley (Australian), Sean O'Casey (Irish), Eugene (Gladstone) O'Neill (U.S.), Joe Orton (English), John Osborne (English), Thomas Otway (English), John Patrick (U.S.), Arthur Wing Pinero (English), Harold Pinter (English), Luigi Pirandello (Italian), Titus Maccius Plautus (Roman), Hal Porter (Australian), Aleksander Sergeyevich Pushkin (Russian), Jean Baptiste Racine (French), Terence Mervyn Rattigan (English), John Romeril (Australian), Willy Russell (English), Thomas Sackville (English), Jean-Paul Sartre (French), Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (German), Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Roman), Alan Seymour (Australian), Peter Shaffer (English), William Shakespeare (English), George Bernard Shaw (Irish), Sam Shepard (U.S.), Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Irish), Robert Sherwood (U.S.), Sophocles (Greek), Wole Soyinka (Nigerian), Tom Stoppard (Czech-English), August Strindberg (Swedish), John Millington Synge (Irish), Terence (Roman), John Webster (English), Oscar Wilde (Irish), Thornton Wilder (U.S.), Tennessee Williams (U.S.), David Keith Williamson (Australian), William Wycherly (English)
Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002
Translations
أحْداث درامِيَّهالمَسْرَحِيَّهدرامادراما: مَسْرَحِيَّهفَن المَسْرَحِيَّه
dramadramatické umění
dramateaterstykketeatervidenskab
näytelmä
drama
drámaszínmûirodalom
drama
áhrifamikill atburîurleikbókmenntirleiklistleikrit
dramadramatiškaidramatiški įvykiaidramatizavimasdramatizuoti
drāmadramatiski notikumidramaturģijaskatuves māksla
divadelné umenie
dramadramska umetnostigra
skådespel
บทละคร
dramheyecanlı olaylaroyuntiyatro sanatı
kịch

drama

[ˈdrɑːmə]
A. N
1. (= dramatic art) → teatro m; (= play) → obra f dramática, drama m
2. (fig) (= event) → drama m; (= excitement) → dramatismo m
B. CPD drama critic Ncrítico/a m/f de teatro
drama queen N (pej) → peliculero/a m/f
you're such a drama queeneres demasiado peliculero
drama school Nescuela f de arte dramático
drama student Nestudiante mf de arte dramático
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

drama

[ˈdrɑːmə]
n
(= art, literature) → théâtre m
Greek drama → le théâtre grec
(= play) → pièce f
(= school subject) → théâtre m
Drama is my favourite subject → Le théâtre est ma matière préférée.
(= event) → drame m
(= excitement) → vive émotion f
modif [class, club, coach, student, teacher, workshop] → de théâtredrama critic ncritique m dramatiquedrama school nécole f d'art dramatique
I'd like to go to drama school → J'aimerais entrer dans une école d'art dramatique.
Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

drama

n (= art, play, incident)Drama nt; (no pl: = quality of being dramatic) → Dramatik f; 18th-century German dramadas deutsche Drama des 18. Jahrhunderts; family drama (= TV series)Familienserie f; to make a drama out of a crisiseine Krise dramatisieren

drama

:
drama critic
nTheaterkritiker(in) m(f)
drama-doc
n (TV) → Dokumentarspiel nt
drama festival
drama queen
n (pej inf)Schauspielerin f (pej inf)
drama school
drama student
nSchauspielschüler(in) m(f)
Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

drama

[ˈdrɑːmə] n (gen) → dramma m, teatro; (play) → commedia; (event) → dramma
drama critic → critico teatrale
drama student → studente/essa di arte drammatica
Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

drama

(ˈdraːmə) noun
1. a play for acting on the stage. He has just produced a new drama.
2. plays for the stage in general. modern drama.
3. the art of acting in plays. He studied drama at college.
4. exciting events. Life here is full of drama.
dramatic (drəˈmӕtik) adjective
1. of or in the form of a drama. a dramatic performance.
2. vivid or striking. a dramatic improvement; She made a dramatic entrance.
3. (of a person) showing (too) much feeling or emotion. She's very dramatic about everything.
draˈmatically adverb
ˈdramatist (ˈdrӕ-) noun
a writer of plays.
ˈdramatize, ˈdramatise (ˈdrӕ-) verb
1. to turn into the form of a play. She dramatized the novel for television.
2. to make real events seem like things that happen in a play. She dramatizes everything so!
dramatiˈzation noun
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary © 2006-2013 K Dictionaries Ltd.

drama

دراما drama drama Drama δράμα drama näytelmä drame drama dramma drama drama dramat drama драма skådespel บทละคร dram kịch 戏剧
Multilingual Translator © HarperCollins Publishers 2009
References in classic literature ?
According to his idea, a romance is born in a manner that is, in some sort, necessary, with all its chapters; a drama is born with all its scenes.
The author considered that the only two of these chapters which were in the least important, owing to their extent, were chapters on art and history which in no way interfered with the groundwork of the drama and the romance, that the public would not notice their loss, and that he, the author, would alone be in possession of the secret.
The world hath been often compared to the theatre; and many grave writers, as well as the poets, have considered human life as a great drama, resembling, in almost every particular, those scenical representations which Thespis is first reported to have invented, and which have been since received with so much approbation and delight in all polite countries.
Pathos differs from Tragedy in that Tragedy (whether in a drama or elsewhere) is the suffering of persons who are able to struggle against it, Pathos the suffering of those persons (children, for instance) who are merely helpless victims.
"You have touched upon a subject, senor canon," observed the curate here, "that has awakened an old enmity I have against the plays in vogue at the present day, quite as strong as that which I bear to the books of chivalry; for while the drama, according to Tully, should be the mirror of human life, the model of manners, and the image of the truth, those which are presented now-a-days are mirrors of nonsense, models of folly, and images of lewdness.
If very little came to me in those days from books, on the other hand my acquaintance with the drama vastly enlarged itself.
'Why don't you, cher monsieur, give us the drama of virtue?' 'Because, chere madame, the high privilege of virtue is precisely to avoid drama.' The adventures of the honest lady?
They found themselves in the midst of a revival of the drama. Several of Ibsen's plays were on the repertory for the winter; Sudermann's Die Ehre was then a new play, and on its production in the quiet university town caused the greatest excitement; it was extravagantly praised and bitterly attacked; other dramatists followed with plays written under the modern influence, and Philip witnessed a series of works in which the vileness of mankind was displayed before him.
All plays taken together are called the drama, and the writers of them are called dramatists, from a Greek word dran, to act or do.
Hence, some say, the name of 'drama' is given to such poems, as representing action.
That motley drama - oh, be sure It shall not be forgot !
"But it's such a long drama!" was the plaintive reply.