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comic, a. and n.|ˈkɒmɪk|
Also 4 comice, 6 commick(e, 6–7 comi(c)que, 6–8 comick.
[ad. L. cōmic-us, a. Gr. κωµικ-ός of or pertaining to comedy (= κωµῳδικός), as n. comic poet or actor, prob. f. κῶµος merry-making, revel: see comedy. Cf. F. comique (adj. and n.).]
A. adj.
1. Of, proper, or belonging to comedy, in the dramatic sense, as distinguished from tragedy.
comic poet, a writer of comedies. comic opera, an opera whose subject is of the nature of a comedy, and in which a large part of the dialogue is spoken; but now often applied to a mere burlesque set to music. The sense in quot. 1387 is obscure.
[1387Trevisa Higden (Rolls) V. 321 Boethius..made fifty songes endited comice [cantus comicos edidit] þat is as it were schort vers. ]1576N. R. Commend. Verses in Gascoigne's Steele Gl. (Arb.) 46 For commicke verse still Plautus peerelesse was. 1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie i. xi. (Arb.) 41 Besides those Poets Comick there were other who served also the stage..called Poets Tragicall. 1602Return fr. Parnass. v. iv. (Arb.) 72 Who kennes the lawes of euery comick stage. 1742Fielding Jos. Andrews Pref., No two species of writing can differ more widely than the comic and the burlesque. 1746Collins Odes, Manners 55 The comick sock that binds thy feet. 1762Sterne Let. to Garrick 19 Mar., The whole city of Paris is bewitch'd with the comic opera. 1841Macaulay Comic Dramatists, The Puritan had affected formality: the comic poet laughed at decorum. 1878J. Hullah in Grove Dict. Mus. I. 380 Comic opera is the opera of comedy, not ‘comic’ in the vulgar English sense.
2. Aiming at a humorous or ridiculous effect: applied to literary compositions, songs, journals, etc., which have it as their express aim to excite mirth; burlesque, funny.
A modern downward extension of the notion, to which the first quot. is only transitional.
[1711Shaftesbury Charac. (1737) III. 253 Cervantes..that comick author.] 1839(title), Comic Latin Grammar. 1852Dickens Bleak Ho. xi, Little Swills, the Comic Vocalist. 1883Lloyd Ebb & Flow II. 6 The bookstall where the comic papers were. 1884M. E. Braddon Ishmael xiv, A sentimental duet about the stars and the sea was followed by a comic duet about a matrimonial quarrel.
3. Said of actions, incidents, etc.: = comical 4.
a. Calculated to excite mirth; intentionally funny.
1791Boswell Johnson 6 Apr. an. 1775, Moody interjected, in an Irish tone, and with a comic look, ‘Ah! poor George the Second’. 1879E. Garrett House by Works II. 7 Will was..full of cheerfulness and fun during his wife's visits to the hospital, indulging only in comic murmurs.
b. Unintentionally provocative of mirth; laughable, ludicrous.
1751Johnson Rambler No. 176 ⁋2 Among the principal of comick calamities, may be reckoned the pain which an author..feels at the onset of a furious critick. 1833Sir F. B. Head Bubbles fr. Brunnen iii, His attempt in such deep affliction to be musical is comic in the extreme. 1847Tennyson Princ. Concl. 67 Revolts, republics, revolutions,..Too comic for the solemn things they are, Too solemn for the comic touches in them. 1873Mrs. Alexander Wooing o't v, Finding something irresistibly comic in the widow's woes.
B. n.
†1.
a. A comic writer; = comedian 2. Obs.
1581Lambarde Eiren. ii. vii. (1588) 257 Ita fugias, ne præter casam, as the Comicque sayd. 1658W. Burton Itin. Anton. 50 Of this Menander the Comick in these two Senaries. 1738Warburton Wks. (1811) I. 151, I would say, with the old comic, Utinam, etc.
b. A comic actor; = comedian 1.
1619H. Hutton Follies Anat. 9 Acting a comicks part upon the stage. 1709Steele Tatler No. 22 ⁋5 Cave Underhill, who has been a Comick for Three Generations. 1927E. Thompson These Men thy Friends 93 That Grimes, he is a comic! 1927Cleveland Press 31 Jan., [They] are highly amusing as dancers and knock-about comics. 1961J. McCabe Laurel & Hardy (1962) i. 38 ‘Stan,’ he said, ‘why do you want to be a comic?’
2. colloq.
a. Short for comic paper [cf. daily]. A children's paper; in pl., the comic strips in a newspaper, etc. Cf. horror comic.
1889Catholic Household 1 June 7/3 The joke from one of the comics, to which you object, was quite harmless. 1910H. G. Wells Mr. Polly i. 20 One of those inspiring weeklies that dull people used to call ‘penny dreadfuls’, admirable weeklies crammed with imagination that the cheap boys' ‘comics’ of today have replaced. 1917T. S. Eliot Prufrock 21 You will see me any morning in the park Reading the comics and the sporting page. 1957Eng. Lang. Teaching (Brit. Council) XII. no. 1. Oct.–Dec. 7 It has long been recognized..that the grasp that the Comics can exert and maintain upon their readers' attention could offer a promise as well as a threat to education. 1960E. H. Gombrich Art & Illusion 8 Even pin-ups and comics, rightly viewed, may provide food for thought.
b. A comic film, or television programme.
1929Wodehouse Mulliner Speaking ix. 301 Let's beef in or we'll be missing the educational two-reel comic. 1938E. Bowen Death of Heart ii. v. 269 She saw light from the comic flickering on his eyeballs. 1962Listener 15 Feb. 288/1 What are your favourite television programmes?.. Mostly the light programmes, the comics.
3. quasi-n. the comic: that which is comic; the comic side of the drama, of life, etc.
1842Lytton Zanoni i. ii, Others insist upon it that her forte is the comic. 1858De Quincey Th. Grk. Trag. Wks. (1862) IX. 54 The ultimate resource, the well-head of the comic, must for ever be sought in one and the same field.
C. Comb., as comic annual, comic postcard, comic song; † comic-serious, comic-tragical (= comico-serious, -tragical); comic alphabet, a humorous presentation of the alphabet; comic book U.S., a book of strip cartoons; Comic Cuts, the name of a popular children's paper; later used as a derisory nickname for official armed services' Intelligence Summaries; also attrib., as typical of a strip cartoon; comic-opera, used attrib. of a comic or farcical act, situation, etc.; comic relief [relief2], comic episodes of a play, etc., intended to offset the more serious parts; also transf.; comic strip, see strip n.2
1836in P. Muir Eng. Children's Bks. 1600–1900 (1954) 198 Comic Alphabet [illustr. by George Cruikshank]. 1961E. Partridge Comic Alphabets ii. 25 The comic alphabets of the 19th century seem to have begun their career as burlesques of, or satires on, the 16th–20th century children's alphabets designed to smoothe the way for very young learners.
1830(title) Comic annual.
1941Amer. Jrnl. Orthopsychiatry XI. 540 (heading) The effect of comic books on the ideology of children. Ibid., The comic book, a new medium aimed at the pre-adolescent child, has..taken its place alongside the movies and radio in children's interest. Ibid. 541 A Christmas display featuring a comic book hero outranked even Santa Claus in the children's interest. 1955Times 3 May 8/7 Mr. Averell Harriman has approved a Bill making it a misdemeanour to publish or distribute ‘comic books’ devoted to sex or crime to persons under 18.
1890(title) Comic cuts. 1908H. G. Wells War in Air i. §2, He was making three shillings a week or more, and spending it on Chips, Comic Cuts, Ally Sloper's Half-Holiday, cigarettes, [etc.]. 1916‘Ian Hay’ First Hundred Thou. xix. 277 The official Intelligence Summary of our Division—published daily and known to the unregenerate as ‘Comic Cuts’. 1917‘Contact’ Airman's Outings 201 Of all the tabloid tales published last year in R.F.C. ‘Comic Cuts’, the most comic was that of a mist, a British bus, and a Boche General. 1929Bowen Sea Slang, Comic cuts, Admiralty intelligence reports; G.H.Q. communiqués: naval and military. 1959Listener 19 Feb. 320/1 He was no comic-cuts figure winning votes as a simple rail-splitter who appealed to the common man.
1906Daily Chron. 19 Jan. 3/6 Whoever obtained Mr. Chamberlain's blessing for Mr. Goodhart must have done so by false pretences... It was a comic-opera situation. 1906Westm. Gaz. 12 May 2/3 Mont Blanc looked down with her superb consciousness of eternal snows at the comic-opera passions of the little valley election. 1937Koestler Spanish Testament iv. 75 [The Spanish Army]..had the reputation of being a ‘comic-opera army’. 1949I. Deutscher Stalin 79 There were such comic-opera touches about the conference.
1941‘G. Orwell’ in Horizon Sept. 153 A comic postcard is simply an illustration to..a ‘low’ joke. 1960Auden Homage to Clio 45 It might equally well be a comic postcard.
1825in E. Fitzball Dram. Author's Life (1859) I. 133 And the moment the point necessary for the plot is attained, the audience are always impatient for the comic relief. 1920Beerbohm And Even Now 276 I sometimes wished this work had some comic relief in it. 1921G. B. Shaw Back to Methus. p. lxxxiv, The Shakespearian-Dickensian consolation of laughter at mischief, accurately called comic relief.
1790F. Burney Diary (1842–6) V. 166 His comic-serious face and manner.
1819Times 30 Aug. 3/5 He has..procured a scanty subsistence by writing comic songs. 1836Dickens in Library of Fiction I. 15 Mr. Tippin sang a comic song. 1919D. Ashford Young Visiters (1951) viii. 51 Sounds of laughter and comic songs issued from the abode.
1610Donne Pseudo-Martyr 108 This Comique Tragicall Doctrine of Purgatory. |