Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having the excitement and emotional appeal of melodrama.
  • adjective Exaggeratedly emotional or sentimental; histrionic.
  • adjective Characterized by false pathos and sentiment.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to, suitable for, or having the character of melodrama.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to melodrama; like or suitable to a melodrama; unnatural in situation or action.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to melodrama; like or suitable to a melodrama; unnatural in situation or action.
  • adjective Exaggeratedly emotional or sentimental.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective having the excitement and emotional appeal of melodrama
  • adjective characteristic of acting or a stage performance; often affected

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The teacher whose cell number you somehow got hold of so you could call her on weekends to discuss your grievances against other students and their parents in melodramatic fashion.

    Last Minute Assistant Gift Guide 2009

  • The president has made a tic of hammering in melodramatic movie tropes: good vs. evil, you're with us or you're with the terrorists, "wanted dead or alive," "bring 'em on," "mission accomplished."

    July 2005 2005

  • The whole melodrama of the Middle East would be improved if amnesia were as common here as it is in melodramatic plots.

    Zion's Vital Signs P. J. O'Rourke 2001

  • The whole melodrama of the Middle East would be improved if amnesia were as common here as it is in melodramatic plots.

    Zion's Vital Signs P. J. O'Rourke 2001

  • On what can you possibly base that scenario, which you yourself call melodramatic? "

    Banquets of the Black Widowers Asimov, Isaac, 1920-1992- 1984

  • If we don't include him in events or if we broach the topic of his social behavior, he treats it as a disaster and gets very melodramatic -- in other words, he pulls out all the stops on us!

    Ask Amy 2010

  • A story of exciting action certainly; it has elements that would ordinarily be called melodramatic -- events which are focussed down into realities against the tremendous background of an incredible war.

    When Winter Comes to Main Street Grant Martin Overton 1908

  • What one may call the melodramatic Irish story, in which Lever was so brilliantly successful, has its first famous example in _The Collegians_ of Gerald Griffin.

    Irish Books and Irish People Stephen Lucius Gwynn 1907

  • Miss Havisham and her protegee, Estella, whom she educates to be the scourge of men, belong to what may be called the melodramatic side of Dickens 'art.

    Life of Charles Dickens Marzials, Frank 1887

  • Glaucus and Nydia at Pompeii would be called melodramatic rant.

    Studies in Early Victorian Literature Frederic Harrison 1877

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