melodrama

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a sensational dramatic work with exaggerated emotions, clear moral oppositions, stock characters, and an eventful plot

   The play became a melodrama of secret identities, villains, and last-minute rescues.

2. 2
   noun

   exaggeratedly emotional behavior, language, or treatment of an event

   She described the minor disagreement without turning it into melodrama.

3. 3
   noun

   historical: drama in which spoken action is accompanied or intensified by music

   The festival staged an early melodrama with orchestral passages beneath the spoken text.

From French mélodrame, ultimately Greek melos, 'song or music,' + drama, 'action or play.' The earliest melodramas combined spoken drama with musical accompaniment. The name later shifted toward sensational plots and heightened emotion, then to exaggerated behavior outside the theater.

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