A dramatic composition, or representation of a bright and amusing character, based upon the foibles of individuals, the manners of society, or the ludicrous events or accidents of life; a play in which mirth predominates and the termination of the plot is happy; opposed to tragedy
The comedy of a situation involves those aspects of it that make you laugh. Jackie sees the comedy in her millionaire husband's thrifty habits. = humour see also situation comedy. Genre of dramatic literature that deals with the light and amusing or with the serious and profound in a light, familiar, or satirical manner. Comedy can be traced to revels associated with worship in Greece in the 5th century BC. Aristophanes, Menander, Terence, and Plautus produced comedies in classical literature. It reappeared in the late Middle Ages, when the term was used to mean simply a story with a happy ending (e.g., Dante's Divine Comedy), the same meaning it has in novels of the last three centuries (e.g., the fiction of Jane Austen). Compare tragedy. musical comedy comedy of manners New Comedy situation comedy
In television, sitcom is the most common form of comedy, literally where the humour arises from the situation that a group of characters find themselves in Sitcoms often have "canned laughter attached In theatre there are many types of comedy One example is character comedy, which comes from a tradition known as commedia dell arte, a modern form of this is improvised comedy such as Theatre sports Back to top
a broad category of dramatic works that are intended primarily to entertain and amuse an audience Comedies take many different forms, but they all share three basic characteristics: (1) the values that are expressed and that typically present the conflict within the play are social and determined by the general opinion of society (as opposed to universal and beyond the control of humankind, as in tragedy); (2) characters in comedies are often defined primarily in terms of their society and their role within it; (3) comedies often end with a restoration of social order in which one or more characters take a proper social role Close Window
Popularly, a funny play; classically, a play that ends happily; metaphorically, a play with some humor that celebrates the eternal ironies of human existence ("divine comedy")
Comedy consists of types of entertainment, such as plays and films, or particular scenes in them, that are intended to make people laugh. Actor Dom Deluise talks about his career in comedy. a TV comedy series