melodrama

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“
The story is utterly irrelevant but the melodrama is amusing and, although it adds nothing to the main game,

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A drama, such as a play, film, or television program, characterized by exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and interpersonal conflicts.
  2. noun The dramatic genre characterized by this treatment.
  3. noun Behavior or occurrences having melodramatic characteristics.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Truffaut's romantic anti-war melodrama, a gently personal-political ode to theatre and life under the German occupation of France, is perhaps the most slickly populist work of his career. —  GreenCine Daily
  • Far from a navel-gazing teen melodrama, the books are deeply revealing and introspective. —  J. Weekly
  • Fifteen seasons of ER came barreling to a close tonight in an episode that really embodied what the pioneering medical melodrama was all about-blood and guts (both literal and figurative), trauma and healing, loss and lessons learned, freak injuries (geriatric penile damage), and accidents small (wedding brawl) and large (explosion with mass casualties). —  E! Online (US) - Top Stories
  • Nor was I surprised by the implausibilities, or how much it dragged, or the melodrama, and so on. —  The India Uncut Blog
  • This is a disposable made-for-the-Hallmark-Channel melodrama, and it would be dismissed as such if it starred Wilford Brimley as Wilford Brimley, instead of starring Clint Eastwood —  FlickFilosopher.com
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Alteration of melodrame, from French mélodrame, spoken drama that includes some musical accompaniment, melodrama : Greek melos, song + French drame, drama (from Late Latin drāma; see drama).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also melodrame, from French mélodrame = Spanish Portuguese melodrama = Italian melodramma = German melodram, from New Latin melodrama, from Greek μέλος, song, + δρᾱμα, action, a play: see drama.
 

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/mɛləˈdrɑmə/
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