1Professional entertainment consisting of jokes and satirical sketches, intended to make an audience laugh.

1. 1.1 A movie, play, or broadcast program intended to make an audience laugh.
   a rollicking new comedy

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Nominated for 10 Academy awards, it won 4, and was as important a film as a comedy can be.
   • Like many great screwball comedies, the film keeps rolling and rolling on pure, uninhibited energy.
   • This audio track turns the film into a real comedy instead of an unintended one.
   • Setting the play in the 1930s, she took her inspiration primarily from classical Hollywood screwball comedies and films noirs.
   • While it's true I may have chuckled a few times, I can't call this film a comedy.
   • This film is a comedy about people interested in these matters - it's funny but it also takes things quite seriously.
   • The film, a black-and-white comedy about a rock band going AWOL in northern Ontario, was finished just in the nick of time.
   • I see the film as a black comedy - all of the abuses in the world we live in are mirrored in the silly little world of wine.
   • She is best remembered for two films, both comedies.
   • A lot of people actually preferred that because it was more of a horror film than a dark comedy.
   • I had already explored the documentary world at the limits of fiction, and, in fictional films, had explored comedies and thrillers.
   • She did not look out of place in a comedy film, but neither did she seem completely comfortable.
   • There's actually enough dark humor to almost make this film a black comedy.
   • The industry already adjusts budgets to deal with films, like talky comedies, that aren't expected to play well overseas.
   • Recent comedy films that reflect on growing up in the 1980s can be seen within a tradition of screen representations of past youth.
   • Whether it's action films or screwball comedies, most Hollywood movies focus on beautiful young characters.
   • So what Indian film-makers did was to adapt Hollywood musicals and comedies with their own storylines to create films that were pure entertainment.
   • The themes for this year's programme run from animated to experimental films; from comedies to stories of loss.
   • As it stands, the film is a breezy comedy that ranks as one of his lighter works.
   • The film is a comedy, but rarely relies on outright gags for laughs.
2. 1.2 The style or genre represented by comedy films, plays, and broadcast programs.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • The script and dialogue writers have kept essential logic and reasoning and the basic distinctions between comedy and farce far away from viewers' sensibility.
   • Hardwick acknowledges that moving from romantic comedy / relationship drama to the action genre is a departure for him.
   • In the traditional romantic comedy style, he walks the line between romantic lead and comedic lead.
   • This mix of ancient and modern stories lets him vary his theatrical styles from knockabout comedy and storm effects to touching monologues and ethnic songs.
   • Despite those rewards, it is unlikely that single camera comedy will overtake traditional comedy as the genre's leading format.
   • He shows such critical and probing intensity that he might well push the film beyond the genre of romantic comedy.
   • Romantic comedy is a genre mainly comprised of sappy, syrupy fare with few risks and fewer surprises.
   • In true romantic comedy style, it tries so very hard to be a feel-good film.
   • He has sold short stories in a range of genres, including romantic comedy, science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
   • It respects the genre of romantic comedy while adding a unique flavor.
   • Within the genre of romantic comedy, so many female leads spend entire films longing and pining for the ‘right one’.
   • He has sold short fiction in a range of genres from horror to romantic comedy, and back again.
   • I saw this much more as a limitation of/trope from the romantic comedy genre in general.
   • However, working within genre films, whether horror, high-school or romantic comedy, is a more confining situation.
   • The romantic comedy has to be one of the toughest genres to crack.
   • To the dismay of its critics and the delight of its fans, romantic comedy is a formula genre.
   • May their sizzle never fizzle should be the opening prayer in this mixed genre film that careens wildly from romantic comedy to big bang action movie.
   • The main themes this year include comedy, genre cinema, historical and political works, the search for identity and, of course, love.
   • If you lean towards the romantic comedy / light entertainment side, stay away.
   • It's a fresh departure from the action and adventure genre into comedy but we're confident it'll work.
   • Regardless of the genre, comedy, drama, action, what is one secret that makes for an excellent movie trailer?

   Synonyms

   light entertainment
3. 1.3 The humorous or amusing aspects of something.
   advertising people see the comedy in their work

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Halfway home, the film bends to formula and delves into melodrama as it tones down the comedy.
   • You need the people around you to create situations that generate comedy, and you need to be able to recognize it when it comes.
   • He simply wrote himself into a corner, cranking up the tension and comedy of the situation to a peak he didn't have the imagination to surmount.
   • The comedy throughout the film is similarly cruel and misogynistic.
   • The physical comedy is toned down a bit this time to make room for ensemble scenes.
   • Far from being bored with the work by this time, they all seem to revel in it, creating the comedy through their characters' utter seriousness.
   • Put comedy into your commute by listening to humorous books on tape.
   • This ending is typical of the series in its combination of crudity, cruelty, and revenge, and in the physical knockabout character of its comedy.
   • McCall Smith deals in the comedy of character, rather than in farce.
   • Much of the comedy is improvised, giving willing punters a chance to join in the fun, and those less willing a chance to simply sit back and watch.
   • Tickets are £5 apiece and I am told that despite the relatively obvious macabre aspects of the plot, there is some comedy involved.
   • Because after all, a very serious subject like war was getting treated with comedy, as a sit-com, after all.
   • I think they could tone the comedy down slightly and try and promote him as an accomplished athlete who can get it done in the ring as well as talk a good game.
   • Yet she clearly relishes creating comedy from situations which, on one level, are deeply tragic.
   • The physical comedy in the bar scene alone is worth the price of admission.

   Synonyms

   humour, fun, funny side, comical aspect, funniness, ludicrousness, absurdity, absurdness, drollness, farce
4. 1.4 A play characterized by its humorous or satirical tone and its depiction of amusing people or incidents, in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity.
   Shakespeare's comedies

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Three utterly madcap men in tights and sneakers take the theatre by storm as they gallop through the tragedies, histories and comedies at a speed that will leave you gasping.
   • This pointed failure to incorporate all the major characters into a comedy's marriage plot recurs in the works of the remaining two authors in this volume.
   • Set in France in the 18th century the comedy sees Kate's character, Eloise, return to her former lover and father of her child, who is less than happy to see her.
   • On stage he has played character roles in farces, pantomime, comedies and serious drama.
   • He saw comedies, tragedies, dramas, shows of acrobatics and clowning, all accompanied by fine music, and all this performed by a family of only twenty members.
   • The byplay created by the argument over whether a comedy or a tragedy should be played fits the secrecy/revelation pattern.
   • Don Pasquale is not a slapstick farce, it is a comedy of character and relies on the audience observing the detailed interplay between the singers.
   • Most people think that William Shakespeare, who died in 1616, wrote three kinds of plays: comedies, tragedies and histories.
   • What makes a Shakespearean play a comedy or a tragedy?
   • In his celebration of one of Shakespeare's lesser-known comedies, he seems to agree with Orsino that music is the food of love.
   • The play is a character-driven comedy but also becomes a paean to the joy that achieving even modest goals can bring.
   • Although he does not make any profound remarks, he seems to be the wisest person within all the characters in the comedy.
   • Didn't Aristotle say that characters in tragedies are better than us and characters in comedies are worse than us?
   • In the same period as Pascal, Molière's biting social comedies and tragedies reflected much beyond themselves in space and time.
   • It stuck to its well-tried popular repertory of melodramas, comedies, and musicals, though both theatres scheduled touring opera companies throughout the year.
   • More than most of Shakespeare's other comedies, Much Ado has a touch of tragedy about it and this production captures that element very well.
   • No authorial comment has been more widely noted than the request of Chekhov that his plays be performed as comedies.
   • It allowed us to play on the elements of tragedy, drama, comedy, farce, and it allowed us to explore many, many levels.
   • And this being one of Shakespeare's comedies, rather than tragedies, all's well that ends well!
   • Just as the Fool is the wisest character in Shakespeare's comedies, so he pretends to be dim when he's being pin sharp.
5. 1.5 The dramatic genre represented by comedies.
   satiric comedy

   Compare with tragedy (sense 2)

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Despite the undeniable influence of earlier models, Shakespearian comedy represents a distinctive dramatic category.
   • As she gears up for her latest dramatic role, Ramsahai has noted that local audiences love drama but most theatrical offerings in this country are in the comedy genre.
   • Every Man in His Humour, finished in late 1598, established him as a major writer of comedy and satire.
   • In the early eighteenth century, Ludvig Holberg wrote in a variety of forms, including satire and comedy.
   • Playwright Marin Drzic was writing farce, satire and comedy here in the 16th century, and the city has had a thriving theatrical scene since then.
   • The play moves away from the comedy and romance genres, and moves into the world of writing.
   • The final play, Wroth's Love's Victory, is not only the latest of the three but also encompasses a very different genre: the pastoral comedy.