tragic
/ˈtradʒɪk
/adjective
1Causing or characterized by extreme distress or sorrow: the shooting was a tragic accident...
- Everyone at the school is extremely shaken and saddened by the tragic accident.
- It was a tragic accident, but accidents happen in demolition all the time.
- Three more people died on local roads in the past week in two tragic accidents
Synonyms
disastrous, calamitous, catastrophic, cataclysmic, devastating, terrible, dreadful, appalling, horrendous, dire, ruinous, gruesome, awful, miserable, wretched, unfortunate;
fatal, deadly, mortal, lethal
dreadful, terrible, awful, deplorable, lamentable, regrettable, abject, miserable, wretched, grievous, galling, vexatious
1.1Suffering extreme distress or sorrow: the tragic parents reached the end of their tether...
- The agony goes on for the parents of the tragic four-year-old as doctors remain baffled as to how he died.
- The tragic lives of parents are never a reason to repeat the tragedy upon their children.
- The parents of tragic Robbie are celebrating the birth of a baby daughter.
Synonyms
sad, unhappy, pathetic, moving, distressing, painful, sorrowful, heart-rending, agonizing, stirring, disturbing, pitiful, piteous;
melancholy, doleful, mournful, dejected, despondent, anguished, desolate, dismal, gloomy
1.2 informal Very bad or inadequate: the fact that they are so loved-up reminds me just how spectacularly tragic my life is she wears tragic cardigans, usually done up the wrong way...
- Oh, but the 1980s were tragic, weren't they?
- The last film I watched: this is tragic - embarrassing - I didn't mean to but I actually got hooked up in the movie channel yesterday daytime.
- I don't like sport, but partaking in an empty bout of national whooping and cheering simply for the sake of it would be utterly tragic.
2Relating to tragedy in a literary work: the same rules apply whether the plot is tragic or comic...
- The Play of King Lear is a great tragic play that many tragedies try to compare to.
- Then again, it's a theme of war films to make tragedies all the more tragic, isn't it?
- He was the icon in an era of icons, but like Shakespeare's tragic heroes his fatal flaws cut short a certain glittering career.
noun Australian /NZ informal
A boring or socially inept person, typically having an obsessive and solitary interest: at school she’s not a complete tragic, but she’s not exactly popular either...
- Let's face it, we're a nation of quiz show tragics.
- This is how seriously many football tragics take the game here in Melbourne.
- For those of us who are political tragics, the smell of battle is in the air.
Derivatives
tragical
- In Chapter Six, Johnny meets Belladonna and loses her again, in tragical circumstances.
- One of the things which I've learned from it all, from this - it's amazing how some - such a tragical experience can bring so much love and so much - can teach you so much.
- In this sense, Shylock is a tragical figure instead of a comical one, because he has to make a difficult decision, either result of which will hurt himself.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from French tragique, via Latin from Greek tragikos, from tragos 'goat', but associated with tragōidia (see tragedy).
Rhymes
- productionise
- productionism
- productionist
- productionize
- productionized
- production line
- production number
- production platform
- production reactor
- production relations
- production rule
- production run
- production-sharing
- production-test
- production-tested
- production testing
- production value
- production well
- productise
- productive
- productively
- productiveness
- productivism
- productivist
- productivity