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comedy

nouncommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈkɒmədi//
  • United Kingdom//ˈkɔmədɪj//
  • United States//ˈkɑmədi//
  • Scotland//ˈkɔməde//
  • Scotland//-dɪ//

a light, amusing play with a happy ending

noun

  1. 1

    historicala choric song of celebration or revel, especially in Ancient Greece

  2. 2

    a light, amusing play with a happy ending

    A Midsummer Night's Dream is among Shakespeare's most famous comedies.

  3. 3

    a narrative poem with an agreeable ending (e.g., The Divine Comedy)

  4. 4

    a dramatic work that is light and humorous or satirical in tone

  5. 5

    the genre of such works

  6. 6

    entertainment composed of jokes, satire, or humorous performance

    Why would you be watching comedy when there are kids starving right now?

  7. 7

    the art of composing comedy

  8. 8

    a humorous event

Etymology

Etymology tree Ancient Greek κῶμος (kômos) Proto-Hellenic *awéidō Ancient Greek ᾰ̓είδω (ăeídō) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-ā́ Ancient Greek -ᾱ (-ā) Ancient Greek -ή (-ḗ) Ancient Greek ᾰ̓οιδή (ăoidḗ) Ancient Greek ᾠδή (ōidḗ) Ancient Greek κῶμος (kômos) ▲ Ancient Greek ἀείδω (aeídō) Proto-Indo-European *-ós Proto-Hellenic *-ós ▲ Ancient Greek -ος (-os)influ. Ancient Greek -ός (-ós) Ancient Greek ἀοιδός (aoidós) Ancient Greek κωμῳδῐ́ᾱ (kōmōidĭ́ā)bor. Latin cōmoediader. Middle French comediebor. Middle English comedie English comedy Inherited from Middle English comedie, borrowed from Middle French comedie, from Latin cōmoedia, borrowed from Ancient Greek κωμῳδῐ́ᾱ (kōmōidĭ́ā), from κῶμος (kômos, “revel, carousing”) + ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”), or from κῶμος (kômos, “revel, carousing”) + ἀοιδός (aoidós, “singer, bard”). Doublet of commedia.

Forms

plural
comedies
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).