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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
tragedy
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
great
▪ Young Daniel's death had been as great a tragedy, but had not taken him like this.
▪ I know our lives have moments of great tragedy and terrible suffering.
▪ He suffered a great personal tragedy two years ago but he remains with the orchestra.
▪ So great was the tragedy that its horror has not yet been forgotten.
▪ Any case in which a patient suffers a medical accident is a great tragedy.
▪ Darkman is another example of this great tragedy.
▪ Ireland at this period was suffering one of the greatest tragedies of its history - the Great Famine.
▪ The outrage had been overshadowed by the greater tragedy of world events.
human
▪ Mr. Hinchliffe Has the Minister any understanding of the individual human tragedy of unemployment?
▪ There is an enormous cost in terms of both human tragedy and the economic implications, through days lost through sickness and ill health.
▪ The media avoided referring to the human tragedy of war.
▪ To its shame, the international community has stood idly by and allowed this human tragedy to continue for far too long.
▪ Price data can not capture the scale of the human tragedy unfolding across the developing world.
national
▪ It is a national tragedy for Britain.
▪ Alcohol abuse has become a national tragedy, but for me it is a symptom of an even larger malaise.
▪ It is possible to see this most clearly when some local or national tragedy occurs.
▪ And because the country is so small, the nation does come together, especially in times of war or national tragedy.
▪ Gordon Brown portrayed it as a national tragedy that Miss Spence had to apply instead to Harvard, where she was accepted.
personal
▪ But I appreciate that every job lost is a personal tragedy for the person involved.
▪ She said losing would be a personal tragedy.
▪ Delight in his work shrouded personal tragedy.
▪ On March 17, 1992, Rex and Betty Jo faced a terrible personal tragedy.
▪ The deaths serve as a reminder that asthma is responsible for a continuing toll of personal tragedy.
▪ Corry was affected by personal tragedy following the bombing.
▪ He suffered a great personal tragedy two years ago but he remains with the orchestra.
▪ Migration, for example, may be an enforced personal tragedy following persecution or a voluntary choice for a more prosperous life.
real
▪ It was his first real tragedy and he took it very badly.
▪ Or, in a real tragedy, a key scaffold species may be globally extinct.
▪ The real tragedy of Tony Bland is that he is in the public eye.
▪ A real tragedy has taken place.
terrible
▪ More often, however, they haunt that person alone and by so doing indicate some terrible tragedy is imminent.
▪ On March 17, 1992, Rex and Betty Jo faced a terrible personal tragedy.
▪ They elope together, wander the country in search of work, and, finally, a terrible tragedy overtakes their children.
■ VERB
bring
▪ In a war, every family has some one fighting, and every night brings fresh tragedy to every community.
end
▪ Moreover they nearly always end in tragedy because the protagonists reach out in some way fur the unattainable.
▪ So the Calydonian boar hunt ended in tragedy.
▪ With your help we can end this needless tragedy.
▪ These scenes heighten the tension and suggest that all will end in tragedy.
▪ The ambition of those heady days had ended in tragedy, of course.
lead
▪ The combination of all these factors led to the tragedy on pad 34.
▪ Once again this low view of humankind led to tragedy.
▪ He says that Murray always tried to help others, and it was doing just that which led to the tragedy.
▪ The malign coincidence that led to the tragedy was made clear by accident investigators' measurements.
▪ Confronting him and getting her money back leads to violence and tragedy.
occur
▪ There is no clear professional accountability when tragedies occur although there are some signs of it emerging.
▪ That same year, a minor tragedy occurred during a pre-game stunt.
▪ What tragedies must occur before he and the Minister of State will change their minds?
▪ It is possible to see this most clearly when some local or national tragedy occurs.
▪ It senses the danger and almost instantaneously cuts off the power with a speed of reaction which can prevent a tragedy occurring.
▪ The Stewarts had another residence, in Renfrewshire, and it was while they were visiting it that a tragedy occurred.
▪ Yet such triumphant tragedies must needs occur.
▪ Will he accept personal responsibility for any tragedies that occur in the meantime?
prevent
▪ Could she have prevented this latest tragedy?
▪ How are we going to prevent such future tragedies?
▪ It's hoped the system will prevent tragedies like the M50 murder.
▪ They believe this is the sort of incident where the taser might come into its own to prevent a tragedy.
▪ It senses the danger and almost instantaneously cuts off the power with a speed of reaction which can prevent a tragedy occurring.
▪ We have the commitment and the skills to prevent many other tragedies, and to help casualties find love and happiness again.
▪ It almost instantaneously cuts off the power, and can prevent a tragedy occurring.
suffer
▪ Although the innocent might suffer, such tragedies were often accepted philosophically as part of the divine will or punishment.
▪ There is suffering and tragedy in this quirky love story as Toshi learns the truth of his parents' past.
▪ Stotfield was not the only village to suffer tragedy this day.
▪ Bad weather took more of a toll in our community and Derek Brown's family suffered a tragedy during one bad winter.
▪ He suffered a great personal tragedy two years ago but he remains with the orchestra.
▪ Father-of-two Mr Weddle's former wife, Jacqueline Dearden, 41, has suffered nightmares since the tragedy.
turn
▪ And so once again, Oklahomans are determined to turn a tragedy into a triumph.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Investigators still do not know what caused the tragedy, which killed all 278 people on board.
▪ Oedipus is one of the most famous characters in Greek tragedy.
▪ Shakespeare's tragedies
▪ The real tragedy is that the city will no longer have an orchestra.
▪ the worst tragedy in the history of space flight
▪ Unless the world deals with the AIDS threat now, the African continent could suffer "a tragedy of historic proportions."
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Area police, who were coordinating the tragedy coverage, issued a statement following complaints from some of the families.
▪ By increasing the emotional element in comedy, comedy comes into closer relationship with tragedy.
▪ The Fairley family considered that they dealt with their tragedy very well, because both children afterwards showed no signs of trauma.
▪ The girl's short life had been dogged by tragedy.
▪ The story went that after the tragedy Godolphin had retired to his country estate, and never again ventured beyond its perimeters.
▪ Theirs is a tragedy for our entire nation.
▪ There is no clear professional accountability when tragedies occur although there are some signs of it emerging.
▪ What the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South said about the tragedy unfolding before us is right.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
tragedy

Drama \Dra"ma\ (dr[aum]"m[.a] or dr[=a]"m[.a]; 277), n. [L. drama, Gr. dra^ma, fr. dra^n to do, act; cf. Lith. daryti.]

  1. A composition, in prose or poetry, accommodated to action, and intended to exhibit a picture of human life, or to depict a series of grave or humorous actions of more than ordinary interest, tending toward some striking result. It is commonly designed to be spoken and represented by actors on the stage.

    A divine pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon.
    --Milton.

  2. A series of real events invested with a dramatic unity and interest. ``The drama of war.''
    --Thackeray.

    Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last.
    --Berkeley.

    The drama and contrivances of God's providence.
    --Sharp.

  3. Dramatic composition and the literature pertaining to or illustrating it; dramatic literature.

    Note: The principal species of the drama are tragedy and comedy; inferior species are tragi-comedy, melodrama, operas, burlettas, and farces.

    The romantic drama, the kind of drama whose aim is to present a tale or history in scenes, and whose plays (like those of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and others) are stories told in dialogue by actors on the stage.
    --J. A. Symonds.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
tragedy

late 14c., "play or other serious literary work with an unhappy ending," from Old French tragedie (14c.), from Latin tragedia "a tragedy," from Greek tragodia "a dramatic poem or play in formal language and having an unhappy resolution," apparently literally "goat song," from tragos "goat" + oide "song" (see ode).\n

\nThe connection may be via satyric drama, from which tragedy later developed, in which actors or singers were dressed in goatskins to represent satyrs. But many other theories have been made (including "singer who competes for a goat as a prize"), and even the "goat" connection is at times questioned. Meaning "any unhappy event, disaster" is from c.1500.

Wiktionary
tragedy

n. 1 A drama or similar work, in which the main character is brought to ruin or otherwise suffers the extreme consequences of some tragic flaw or weakness of character. 2 The genre of such works, and the art of producing them. 3 A disastrous event, especially one involving great loss of life or injury.

WordNet
tragedy
  1. n. an event resulting in great loss and misfortune; "the whole city was affected by the irremediable calamity"; "the earthquake was a disaster" [syn: calamity, catastrophe, disaster, cataclysm]

  2. drama in which the protagonist is overcome by some superior force or circumstance; excites terror or pity [ant: comedy]

Wikipedia
Tragedy (band)

Tragedy is a band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1995 and is now based out of Portland, Oregon.

Tragedy (Bee Gees song)

"Tragedy" is a song released by the Bee Gees, written by Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb, included on their 1979 album Spirits Having Flown. The single reached #1 in the UK in February 1979 and repeated the feat the following month on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Tragedy (disambiguation)

A tragedy is a literary work with an unhappy outcome.

Tragedy may also refer to:

Tragedy (Thomas Wayne song)

"Tragedy" is a song by Gerald H. Nelson and Fred B. Burch. A recording of the song by Thomas Wayne and the DeLons rose to #5 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1959. A 1961 cover version by The Fleetwoods rose to #10 on the charts. Brian Hyland also recorded it in 1969, but it only made it to #56. Ronnie Dove also recorded a country-flavored version of the song in 1976, however his version did not chart.

Wayne's hit version was released on Memphis, Tennessee-based Fernwood Records, which was owned by Ronald "Slim" Wallace (1957–1965). The single was made with a trio of girls recruited from the local high school. Wayne was a one hit wonder who cut around 20 songs including a remake of his hit for the reactivated Sun label which sounds similar to the original. Some of his other songs were hits for others such as " This Time" ( Troy Shondell) and "Girl Next Door Went a Walkin'" ( Elvis Presley). Despite all of his recordings for 3 different labels before his death in a car crash on August 15, 1971, he never cut an album and there has never been any CD been issued of his songs.

Paul McCartney and Wings also recorded a version of the song for the planned 2-LP set Red Rose Speedway. The idea for the 2-LP set was later abandoned and instead they released a single LP with the same title, but without "Tragedy". The Wings' version has not yet been released on any official records.

Brenda Lee recorded a version of the song on her 1961 album All the Way.

Tragedy (Forever Storm album)

Tragedy is the second studio album by Serbian heavy metal band Forever Storm, released in December 2013 by EBM Records from Mexico.

Tragedy (album)

Tragedy is Julia Holter's first studio LP, released on August 30, 2011. The album is inspired by Hippolytus, a play by Euripides. Holter recorded Tragedy with electronic instrumentation, largely out of necessity, since she lacked the funds to hire session musicians.

Tragedy

Tragedy (from the , tragōidia) is a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term tragedy often refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it.

From its origins in the theatre of ancient Greece 2500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides; through its singular articulations in the works of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Jean Racine, and Friedrich Schiller to the more recent naturalistic tragedy of August Strindberg; Samuel Beckett's modernist meditations on death, loss and suffering; Müller's postmodernist reworkings of the tragic canon; and Joshua Oppenheimer's incorporation of tragic pathos in his nonfiction film, The Act of Killing (2012), tragedy has remained an important site of cultural experimentation, negotiation, struggle, and change. A long line of philosophers—which includes Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Benjamin, Camus, Lacan, and Deleuze—have analysed, speculated upon, and criticized the genre.

In the wake of Aristotle's Poetics (335 BCE), tragedy has been used to make genre distinctions, whether at the scale of poetry in general (where the tragic divides against epic and lyric) or at the scale of the drama (where tragedy is opposed to comedy). In the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama, melodrama, the tragicomic, and epic theatre. Drama, in the narrow sense, cuts across the traditional division between comedy and tragedy in an anti- or a- generic deterritorialization from the mid-19th century onwards. Both Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal define their epic theatre projects ( non-Aristotelian drama and Theatre of the Oppressed, respectively) against models of tragedy. Taxidou, however, reads epic theatre as an incorporation of tragic functions and its treatments of mourning and speculation.

Tragedy (Hanoi Rocks song)

"Tragedy" is a single by the Finnish glam punk band Hanoi Rocks, from the album Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks, but "Tragedy" was released a little before the release of the album. "Tragedy" and its B-side, "Café Avenue", are the most well-known songs from Hanoi Rocks' early career.

"Tragedy" was written by the band's guitarist Andy McCoy when he was 15 or 16. The lyrics basically deal with a typical teen story of a first love and how one imagines it will last forever. At some point it all collapses and it feels that the world is breaking. The result is a "tragedy" and tears. The song is very energetic and has a fast tempo. It is also melodic, even though the guitar parts are a punk style. "Tragedy" was recorded at Park Studios outside Stockholm at the Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks recordings.

"Café Avenue" talks about Hanoi Rocks' individualist-attitude and how it doesn't matter how you look and who you are. The song also features a story told from the point of view of a character who lives a rough, young and wild life, but eventually has to turn to prostitution to earn money. The story is largely inspired by Hanoi Rocks' own life on the streets of Stockholm, where people thought the band were homosexual prostitutes because of their glam rock-look. This song was also recorded at Park Studios outside Stockholm at the Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks recordings. "Café Avenue" wasn't released on an album until 1982's Self Destruction Blues.

On the Japanese single, the song "Don't Never Leave Me" was used as the B-side. The song was later reworked in to a hit-version titled " Don't You Ever Leave Me", which is featured on the album Two Steps from the Move.

Tragedy (event)

A tragedy is an event of great loss, usually of human life. Such an event is said to be tragic. Traditionally the event would require "some element of moral failure, some flaw in character, or some extraordinary combination of elements" to be tragic.

Not all death is considered a tragedy. Rather it is a precise set of symptoms surrounding the loss that define it as such. There are a variety of factors that define a death as tragic.

An event in which a massive number of deaths occur may be seen as a tragedy. This can be re-enforced by media attention or other public outcry.

A tragedy does not necessarily involve massive death. The death of a single person, e.g., a public figure or a child, may be seen as a tragedy. The person need not necessarily have been famous before death.

Usage examples of "tragedy".

Faust, crossing from mere balladry into the classic, cosmic tragedy of the ages, may be held as the ultimate height to which this German poetic impulse arose.

CHAPTER LXVII Public feeling in Marlshire was much excited about the Caresfoot tragedy, and, when it became known that Lady Bellamy had attempted to commit suicide, the excitement was trebled.

Where-Are-They-Now and Threats carried stories of worse tragedies: planets kneedeep in replicant goo, races turned brainless by badly programmed immune systems.

While what I am to describe to you comes to fruition, I shall play the part of a serene old man, far removed from influence, weary indeed of a surfeit of it, an old countryman who seems mainly interested in the system devised on these umber hills by my neighbor Columella and by the freedman Sthenus for the abundant cultivation of grapes, and in the capital they will say that Seneca is at one of his villas writing tragedies, pruning vines, taking cold baths in all weathers at the age of sixty-two, and sending homiletic epistles to his friend Lucilius Junior, who, poor fellow, is already all too amply instructed by his wordy friend.

There seemed little to say, but Celia thought, How much sadness and tragedy, beyond the obvious, Montayne had wrought!

I thought, if I were caught in a newsworthy tragedy: he would be about as compassionate as a tornado.

Sir Nugent, becoming momently more like an actor in a Greek tragedy, was lamenting over one boot, while Pett nursed the other, and recalling every circumstance that had led him to design such a triumph of modishness.

The prisoner whom you there see pale, agitated, and alarmed, instead of -- as is the case when a curtain falls on a tragedy -- going home to sup peacefully with his family, and then retiring to rest, that he may recommence his mimic woes on the morrow, -- is removed from your sight merely to be reconducted to his prison and delivered up to the executioner.

She assured me that the Icove Center was the finest reconstructive and sculpting facility in the country, and that even with the tragedies, the center was in good hands.

Miss Allison, from what she knew of Clement Kane, thought it extremely unlikely that he would make the least attempt to dislodge his great-aunt, but she wisely refrained from saying this and instead went away to inform him of the tragedy.

How many tragedies find their peaceful catastrophe in fierce roulades and strenuous bravuras!

He met with the tragedies of Racine at a moment when the reputation of that poet had sunk to its lowest point, and, totally indifferent to the censure of the academical sanhedrim, he extolled him as a master-anatomist of the human heart.

The man yelled, thinking he was being plunged headlong into tragedy, but Steingall switched on the lights, and four pairs of eager eyes peered at nothing in particular.

Before Steingall uttered another word everyone in the room had a foreboding that they were on the threshold of a discovery which lifted this tragedy into a prominence far beyond aught they had yet dreamed of.

Guess at her relief when strychnine is mentioned, and she discovers that after all the tragedy is not her doing.