Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Tragic character or quality; mournfulness; sadness; fatality.

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

  • noun The state or quality of being tragical.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From tragical +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • Indeed, the spectacle of this young girl absurdly behaving like one, in a serious crisis, increased the tragicalness of the situation even if it did not heighten it.

    The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1899

  • The only book of his that I re - read is The Light that Failed, for its abundant vitality and tragicalness; but the same temperamental repugnance overcomes me even there.

    The Upton Letters Arthur Christopher Benson 1893

  • It is the simple wonder and picturesqueness of the situation that charm him; and while in the drama we are moved to the bottom of our hearts by the humorous tragicalness it casts over the spectacle of conflicting passions, the only outcome of the written tale is a passing reflection on the woe of being henpecked.

    A Study Of Hawthorne Lathrop, George P 1876

  • There is a certain tragic phase of humanity, which, in our opinion, was never more powerfully embodied than by Hawthorne: we mean the tragicalness of human thought in its own unbiased, native, and profound workings.

    A Study Of Hawthorne Lathrop, George P 1876

  • There is a certain tragic phase of humanity, which, in our opinion, was never more powerfully embodied than by Hawthorne: we mean the tragicalness of human thought in its own unbiased, native, and profound workings.

    A Study of Hawthorne George Parsons Lathrop 1874

  • It is the simple wonder and picturesqueness of the situation that charm him; and while in the drama we are moved to the bottom of our hearts by the humorous tragicalness it casts over the spectacle of conflicting passions, the only outcome of the written tale is a passing reflection on the woe of being henpecked.

    A Study of Hawthorne George Parsons Lathrop 1874

  • And the name is employed habitually on occasions when He desires to emphasise His manhood as having truly taken upon itself the whole weight and weariness of man's sin, and the whole burden of man's guilt, and the whole tragicalness of the penalties thereof, as in the familiar passages, so numerous that I need only refer to them and need not attempt to quote them, in which we read of the Son of Man being

    Expositions of Holy Scripture St. John Chapters I to XIV Alexander Maclaren 1868

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