plot

From Middle English plot, plotte, from Old English plot (“a plot of ground”), from Proto-Germanic *plataz, *platjaz (“a patch”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Middle Low German plet (“patch, strip of cloth, rags”), German Bletz (“rags, bits, strip of land”), and possibly Gothic 𐍀𐌻𐌰𐍄 (plat, “a patch, rags”). See also plat. See also complot for an influence on or source of sense 5.
Sense 9 is a back-formation of for the plot.

If the plot or intrigue must be natural, and such as springs from the subject, then the winding up of the plot must be a probable consequence of all that went before.

c. 1725, Alexander Pope, View of the Epic Poem:

(narratology) The course of a story, comprising a series of incidents which are gradually unfolded, sometimes by unexpected means.


sardonic

en-adj

sardonic (comparative more sardonic, superlative most sardonic)

more sardonic (comparative)
most sardonic (superlative)

From French sardonique, from Latin sardonius, from Ancient Greek σαρδόνιος (sardónios), alternative form of σαρδάνιος (sardánios, “bitter or scornful laughter”), which is often cited as deriving from the Sardinian plant (Ranunculus sardous or possibly Oenanthe crocata), known as either σαρδάνη (sardánē) or σαρδόνιον (sardónion). When eaten, it would cause the eater's face to contort in a look resembling scorn (generally followed by death). It might also be related to σαίρω (saírō, “I grin”).

Another manifestation, significantly reaching its apogee in the midst of Antonine virtues, was the growing popularity of adoxographical exercises. Mock panegyrics were dashed off, not just by sardonic intellectuals such as Lucian, but also by trained courtiers and polished encomiasts of the stamp of [Marcus Cornelius] Fronto.

1979, Carl Deroux, editor, Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History [Collection Latomus; 164], volume 1, Brussels: Latomus, →OCLC, page 111:


butt

en-verb

butt (third-person singular simple present butts, present participle butting, simple past and past participle butted)

butts (present singular third-person)
butting (participle present)
butted (participle past)
butted (past)

From Middle English butten, from Anglo-Norman buter, boter (“to push, butt, strike”), from Frankish *bautan (“to hit, beat”), from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to beat, push”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewd- (“to beat, push, strike”). Cognate with Old English bēatan (“to beat”). More at beat.

һөҙөшөү

(intransitive) to strike bluntly with the head

Teacher! He just butted me!

Additionally, kids are pinched, fondled, propositioned, and hit; and it all goes unseen amid the general confusion and nonspecific orders from the cafeteria supervisors who are yelling things like, "Keep it down, you people!" "No butting!" "Wait your turn, boys!" All of which sound as though there is law and order, just no actual justice to the victim.

2016, Chandler, Dan, Bullying in Plain Sight: How Inattentive Adults Encourage the School Bullies, Mustang, O.K.: Tate Publishing and Enterprises, LLC, →ISBN, page 45:

(transitive, intransitive, eastern Canada, parts of the northeastern US) To cut in line (in front of someone).


property

en-noun

property (countable and uncountable, plural properties)

properties (plural)
propretie (alternative)

From Middle English propertee, properte, propirte, proprete, borrowed from Anglo-Norman and Old French propreté, proprieté (“propriety, fitness, property”), from Latin proprietās (“a peculiarity, one's peculiar nature or quality, right or fact of possession, property”), from proprius (“special, particular, one's own”). Equivalent to proper + -ty. Doublet of propriety.

خَاصَّة

attribute or abstract quality associated with an object, individual or concept

characteristic

attribute or abstract quality of an object

Costumes and scenery are distinguished from property properly speaking.

(usually in the plural, theater) A prop, an object used in a dramatic production.


AQ

[ʔaː˧˧ kwi˧˧]

[ʔaː˧˧ kwɪj˧˧]

[ʔaː˧˧ wɪj˧˧]

Phép thắng lợi tinh thần là tạo ra những thắng lợi trong tưởng tượng mà thực chất là thất bại. Người khác đánh AQ, AQ bị thua, AQ cho rằng nó đánh mình chẳng khác gì nó đánh bố nó.

2019, Đinh Thị Quỳnh Mai, “Mỗi tuần một cuốn sách: AQ CHÍNH TRUYỆN (LỖ TẤN) (A Book Every Week: The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun)”, in Department of Education and Training of Hà Tĩnh Province - hatinh.edu.vn:

The Method of Psychological Victory is the creation of victories in one's own imagination from defeats in reality. Another man beat Ah Q, Ah Q was defeated; yet Ah Q thought that him beating (Ah Q) was not different from him beating his own father.

Ah Q; the main character in Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q


guy

en-verb

guy (third-person singular simple present guys, present participle guying, simple past and past participle guyed)

guys (present singular third-person)
guying (participle present)
guyed (participle past)
guyed (past)

PIE word
 *h₁weydʰh₁-
Coined by semantic widening from the name of Guy Fawkes (1570–1606), an English Catholic executed for his role in the Gunpowder Plot, from Old French Gui, a form of Proto-Germanic *Wido, a short form of names beginning with the element witu "wood" from Proto-Germanic *widuz, such as Witold and Widukind. Cognate with Italian Guido.

To guy the speech in the manner of an old-fashioned 'ham' for cheap laughs....

2000, John Southworth, Shakespeare the Player:

(theater, transitive) To play in a comedic manner.


rom com

rom coms (plural)
romcom (alternative)
rom-com (alternative)


prank

Origin uncertain. Perhaps from Middle English pranken (“to adorn, arrange one's attire”), probably from Middle Dutch pronken, proncken (“to flaunt, make a show, arrange one's attire”), related to German prangen (“to make a show, be resplendent”), Dutch prangen (“to squeeze, press”), Danish pragt (“pomp, splendor”), all from Proto-Germanic *pranganą, *prangijaną, *prag- (“to press, squeeze, thring”), from Proto-Indo-European *brAngh- (“to press, squeeze”). Or, perhaps ultimately related to Proto-Germanic *brahtaz, similar to Dutch pracht (“splendor”), Swedish prakt (“glory, pomp”) (loaned from Low German).
Cognate with Middle Low German prunken (“to flaunt”), German prunken (“to flaunt”), Danish prunke (“to make a show, prank”). Sense of "mischievous act" from earlier verbal sense of "to be crafty or subtle, set in order, adjust". See also prink, prance, prong.

der

play a prank

pull a prank on someone

He pulled a gruesome prank on his sister.

His pranks have been too broad to bear with.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:

The harpies […] played their accustomed pranks.

1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5):


conperson

en-noun

conperson (plural conpeople or conpersons)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-conperson.wav

(informal) A fictional person, especially one supposed to inhabit a conworld and speak a conlang.


opera

opera (countable and uncountable, plural operas or opere)

Borrowed from Italian opera. Doublet of oeuvre, opus, and ure.

(music) A theatrical work, combining drama, music, song and sometimes dance.

(music) The genre of such works, the art of composing operas.


opera

opera (nominative singular)
opery (nominative plural)
opery (genitive singular)
oper (genitive plural)
opeře (dative singular)
operám (dative plural)
operu (accusative singular)
opery (accusative plural)
opero (singular vocative)
opery (plural vocative)
opeře (locative singular)
operách (locative plural)
operou (instrumental singular)
operami (instrumental plural)


opera

eo-head

opera (accusative singular operan, plural operaj, accusative plural operajn)

operan (accusative singular)
operaj (plural)
operajn (accusative plural)


opera

operák (plural)
opera (nominative singular)
operák (nominative plural)
operát (accusative singular)
operákat (accusative plural)
operának (dative singular)
operáknak (dative plural)
operával (instrumental singular)
operákkal (instrumental plural)
operáért (causal-final singular)
operákért (causal-final plural)
operává (singular translative)
operákká (plural translative)
operáig (singular terminative)
operákig (plural terminative)
operaként (essive-formal singular)
operákként (essive-formal plural)
operában (inessive singular)
operákban (inessive plural)
operán (singular superessive)
operákon (plural superessive)
operánál (adessive singular)
operáknál (adessive plural)
operába (illative singular)
operákba (illative plural)
operára (singular sublative)
operákra (plural sublative)
operához (allative singular)
operákhoz (allative plural)
operából (elative singular)
operákból (elative plural)
operáról (delative singular)
operákról (delative plural)
operától (ablative singular)
operáktól (ablative plural)
operáé (singular)
operáké (plural)
operáéi (singular)
operákéi (plural)
operám (first-person possessed-single possessive singular)
operáim (first-person possessed-many possessive singular)
operád (possessed-single possessive second-person singular)
operáid (possessed-many possessive second-person singular)
operája (possessed-single possessive singular third-person)
operái (possessed-many possessive singular third-person)
operánk (first-person plural possessed-single possessive)
operáink (first-person plural possessed-many possessive)
operátok (plural possessed-single possessive second-person)
operáitok (plural possessed-many possessive second-person)
operájuk (plural possessed-single possessive third-person)
operáik (plural possessed-many possessive third-person)

Borrowed from Italian opera, from Latin opera.

(music) opera (a theatrical work combining drama, music, song and sometimes dance)

(music) opera, opera house (building designed for the performance of such works)


opera

opera (nominative singular)
opery (nominative plural)
opery (genitive singular)
oper (genitive plural)
operze (dative singular)
operom (dative plural)
operę (accusative singular)
opery (accusative plural)
operą (instrumental singular)
operami (instrumental plural)
operze (locative singular)
operach (locative plural)
opero (singular vocative)
opery (plural vocative)


opera

head

opera (definite accusative operayı, plural operalar)

operayı (accusative definite)
operalar (plural)
opera (nominative singular)
operalar (nominative plural)
operayı (accusative definite singular)
operaları (accusative definite plural)
operaya (dative singular)
operalara (dative plural)
operada (locative singular)
operalarda (locative plural)
operadan (ablative singular)
operalardan (ablative plural)
operanın (genitive singular)
operaların (genitive plural)

From Ottoman Turkish اوپهرا, اوپارا, اوپرا, اوپره (opera), from Italian opera, from Latin opera.


opera

operâu (plural)
opera
hopera (prothesis-h)


narrator

(narratology) The person or the "voice" whose viewpoint is used in telling a story.


narrator

pl-noun

narrator m pers (female equivalent narratorka, related adjective narratorski)

narratorka (feminine)
narratorski (adjective)
narrator (nominative singular)
narratorzy (nominative plural)
narratory (derogatory nominative plural)
narratora (genitive singular)
narratorów (genitive plural)
narratorowi (dative singular)
narratorom (dative plural)
narratora (accusative singular)
narratorów (accusative plural)
narratorem (instrumental singular)
narratorami (instrumental plural)
narratorze (locative singular)
narratorach (locative plural)
narratorze (singular vocative)
narratorzy (plural vocative)

(narratology) narrator (one who narrates or tells stories)


genre

Unadapted borrowing from French genre, from Old French gen(d)re, borrowed from Latin genere. Doublet of gender and genus.

The still life has been a popular genre in painting since the 17th century.

This film is a cross-genre piece, dark and funny at the same time.

The computer game Half-Life redefined the first-person shooter genre.

One of the difficulties that plague conversations about industrial music is that the genre has come to include (to the chagrin and outright denial of some purists) anything from gentle synthesized droning to metal-inspired riffage.

2013, S. Alexander Reed, Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music, page 38:

A kind; a stylistic category or sort, especially of literature or other artworks.


genre

en-verb

genre (third-person singular simple present genres, present participle genring or genreing, simple past and past participle genred)

genres (present singular third-person)
genring (participle present)
genreing (participle present)
genred (participle past)
genred (past)

For quotations using this term, see Citations:genre.

To assign or conform to a genre, to make genre-specific.


cena

(theater, film, television, radio) scene (part of a dramatic work)

em cena


dramaturge

* Definition 1: Borrowed from French dramaturge.
* Definition 2: Borrowed from German Dramaturg.

(rare, theater) Someone who writes or adapts theater plays, a playwright, dramatist, especially one connected with a specific theater or company.

(rare, theater) A literary adviser or editor in a theater, opera, or film company that researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programs (or helps others with these tasks), consults with authors, and does public relations work.


dramaturge

dramaturge (third-person singular simple present dramaturges, present participle dramaturging, simple past and past participle dramaturged)

dramaturges (present singular third-person)
dramaturging (participle present)
dramaturged (participle past)
dramaturged (past)

It expresses concerns about programming (“We have watched you program play after play, written, directed, cast, choreographed, designed, acted, dramaturged and produced by your rosters of white theatermakers for white audiences”); […]

2020 June 9, Michael Paulson, “Theater Artists Decry Racism in Their Industry”, in The New York Times:

(ambitransitive, rare, theater) To act as a dramaturge.


dramaturge

fr-noun

dramaturge m or f by sense (plural dramaturges)

dramatij

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek δραματουργός (dramatourgós).

lbor

δραματουργός

(theater) playwright (writer of plays for the theatre)


doge

From dog, probably as a sensational spelling of doggy like monke. First attested in the 2005 episode "Biz Cas Fri 1" from Homestar Runner.

Bobsled wasn't the only Dogecoin-backed sporting success. Fans of Nascar will recognise the car driven by Josh Wise, emblazoned, as it is, with the adorable little doge on its bonnet (pictured above).

2015 July 23, Dave Lee, “Six times Reddit wasn't completely awful”, in BBC:

(Internet slang, humorous) Specifically, a Shiba Inu, as in the doge meme.


kabuki

Despite its self-consciously assumed irreverence toward traditional practices, “Hokaibo” incorporates all the essential elements of classic Kabuki: the all-male company of actors, exaggerated makeup, the stomping dances, the arresting, cross-eyed poses at moments of high drama that are recognized and applauded.

2007 July 19, Charles Isherwood, “Guilty Pleasures of Comic Kabuki”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Ichikawa, whose real name is Takahiko Kinoshi, made his kabuki debut in 1980 and went on to become one of the country’s most renowned performers.

2023 June 27, AFP, “Japanese kabuki actor arrested for allegedly assisting in his mother’s suicide”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(often capitalized) A form of Japanese theatre in which elaborately costumed male performers use stylized movements, dances, and songs in order to enact tragedies and comedies.

The whole "weapons of mass destruction" concern was phony from the start, and the drama about inspections was just kabuki: going through the motions.

2005 June 12, Michael Kinsley, “No Smoking Gun”, in Washington Post:

Health care reform recently brought Kabuki to mind for both Rush Limbaugh—“what you have here is ‘Kabuki theater’”—and New York Times columnist Frank Rich: “[I]f I were to place an incautious bet on which political event will prove the most significant of February 2010, I wouldn’t choose the kabuki health care summit.”

2010 March 14, Jon Lackman, “It’s Time To Retire Kabuki: The word doesn’t mean what pundits think it does”, in Slate:

The boy tells her she will find iPhone chargers if she takes five steps back. Here the performance shifts from mere stiltedness to a kind of hateful Kabuki, an affected defiance of how people naturally act: She walks backward, counting her steps, then turns and slaps her forehead.

2020 January 29, Dan Brooks, “Comedy Written for the Machines”, in New York Times Magazine:

(by extension, US) A stylized, pretentious, and often hollow performance; (especially) political posturing.


kabuki

Unadapted borrowing from Japanese 歌舞伎 (kabuki).


loge

nl-noun

loge f (plural loges, diminutive logetje n)

loges (plural)
logetje (diminutive neuter)

→ Javanese: ꦭꦺꦴꦗꦶ (loji)

→ Lokono: logie

→ Malay: loji

Indonesian: loji

→ Indonesian: losê


loge

→ German: Loge

→ Dutch: loge

→ Macedonian: ложа (loža)

→ Norwegian Bokmål: losje

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: losje

→ Polish: loża

→ Russian: ло́жа (lóža)

→ Persian: لژ (lož)

→ Swedish: loge

→ Ukrainian: ло́жа (lóža)

Inherited from Middle French loge, from Old French loge. The Masonic sense developed under influence from English lodge.

etymon

(theater, television) dressing room (a room in a theatre or other performance venue in which performers may change costumes and apply makeup)


loge

desctree

French: loge
→ German: Loge
→ Dutch: loge
→ Macedonian: ложа (loža)
→ Norwegian Bokmål: losje
→ Norwegian Nynorsk: losje
→ Polish: loża
→ Russian: ло́жа (lóža)
→ Persian: لژ (lož)
→ Swedish: loge
→ Ukrainian: ло́жа (lóža)


motif

From French motif (1848), with the meaning of "main idea or theme". Doublet of motive.

(music) A short melodic or lyrical passage that is repeated in several parts of a work.

мотив

music: short melodic passage that is repeated in several parts of a work


motif

→ Danish: motiv

→ English: motif

→ German: Motiv
→ Romanian: motiv

→ Norwegian Bokmål: motiv

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: motiv

→ Swedish: motiv

→ Turkish: motif

Learned borrowing from Late Latin mōtīvus.

lbor

pour des motifs qui échappent à tout le monde, à toute logique, à notre appréciation

for motives that escape everyone, all logic, our appreciation

Pour un motif qui m’échappe, un certain merdeux s’est mis à feindre de s’intéresser à mon bien-etre.

For some motive that escapes me, some shit started pretending to be interested in my well-being.

Bien que la faim et le dénûment nous tourmentassent quelquefois, et même à peu près toujours, rien ne nous causait autant de tourment que d’être témoins des cruautés inouïes que mon maître exerçait sur les chrétiens. Chaque jour il en faisait pendre quelqu’un ; on empalait celui-là, on coupait les oreilles à celui-ci, et cela pour si peu de chose, ou plutôt tellement sans motif, que les Turcs eux-mêmes reconnaissaient qu’il ne faisait le mal que pour le faire, et parce que son humeur naturelle le portait à être le meurtrier de tout le genre humain.

1836, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, chapter XL, in Louis Viardot, transl., L’Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manche, volume I, Paris: J[acques]-J[ulien] Dubochet et Cⁱᵉ, éditeurs, […], →OCLC:

Even though hunger and destitution tormented us sometime, and even almost always, nothing caused us as much torment as being witnesses to the unheard-of cruelties that my master exercised on the Christians. Every day, he made someone hang; they impaled that one, they cut off this one's ears, and this for so little stuff, or rather so much without motive, that the Turks themselves recognized that he only did harm for the sake of it, and because his natural temperament brought him to be the murderer of the whole human race.


quip

From a shortening of earlier quippy, perhaps from Latin quippe (“indeed”), ultimately quid (“what”).

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles.

He was full of joke and jest, / But all his merry quips are o'er.

1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Death of the Old Year”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:

He wrote it down, remembering a quip of Pym's, paraphrased from Clemenceau: "Military intelligence has as much to do with intelligence as military music has to do with music.”

Nobody could ever be bothered to imagine the Sand Snakes beyond personalized weaponry and fake-aggressive quips, none of which were very convincing, and now they don’t even register as dead weight.

2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club:

A smart, sarcastic turn or jest; a taunt; a severe retort or comeback; a gibe.


rep

en-noun

rep (countable and uncountable, plural reps)

Clippings of various words beginning with rep.

She did her time in reps before she made the grade in West End theatre.


scrim

scrim (countable and uncountable, plural scrims)

Attested since the end of the 18th century. Origin unknown.
In one of the earliest mentions, "The Statistical Account of Scotland", 1793, by John Sinclair, page 593, we read in a paragraph devoted to weavers: "Besides these, they are now much employed in working a thin kind of coarse linen called Silesias, vulgarly Scrims, whereof each piece is 27 or 30 inches broad".

unk

unknown

Mummified mannequins dangling above the set, illuminated from within, were a heavy-handed touch, but the designer George Tsypin’s translucent scrims and painted drops beautifully conveyed the passage of sun-blasted days and bone-chilling nights on the edge of civilization.

2007 January 22, Steve Smith, “In Austin, Echoes of a Distant War in an Opera’s American Premiere”, in New York Times:

(theater) A theater drop that appears opaque when a scene in front is lighted and transparent or translucent when a scene in back is lighted.


stooge

Perhaps an abbreviation of Russian студе́нт (studént) [stʊˈdʲent]; the original meaning was “stage assistant, actor who assists a comedian”. It may have been a Yiddish vaudeville term.


volta

volta (nominative singular)
volty (nominative plural)
volty (genitive singular)
volt (genitive plural)
volcie (dative singular)
voltom (dative plural)
voltę (accusative singular)
volty (accusative plural)
voltą (instrumental singular)
voltami (instrumental plural)
volcie (locative singular)
voltach (locative plural)
volto (singular vocative)
volty (plural vocative)


caper

From Latin capparis, from Ancient Greek κάππαρις (kápparis).


deck

From Middle English dekke, borrowed from Middle Dutch dec (“roof, covering”), from Middle Dutch decken, from Old Dutch thecken, from Proto-West Germanic *þakkjan, from Proto-Germanic *þakjaną. Formed the same: German Decke (“covering, blanket”). Doublet of thatch and thack.

rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic

shuffle the chairs on the deck of the Titanic


farce

en-noun

farce (countable and uncountable, plural farces)

Borrowed from Middle French farce (“comic interlude in a mystery play”, literally “stuffing”). Doublet of farse.

bor

The farce that we saw last night had us laughing and shaking our heads at the same time.

Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language[…]; his clerks […] understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there.

1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:

(countable) A motion picture or play featuring this style of humor.


farce

→ Catalan: farsa

→ Danish: fars

→ Icelandic: fars

→ English: farce

→ German: Farce

→ Interlingua: farsa

→ Italian: farsa

→ Macedonian: фарса (farsa)

→ Polish: farsa, farsz

→ Portuguese: farsa

→ Romanian: farsă

→ Russian: фарс (fars), фарш (farš)

→ Spanish: farsa

→ Swedish: fars, färs

→ Ukrainian: фарс (fars), фарш (farš)

Dictionnaire de la langue française
Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch
Émile Littré

Inherited from Old French farse, from Medieval Latin farsa, feminine perfect passive participle from farcīre, from farciō (“to stuff”). The theatre sense alludes to the pleasant and varied character of certain stuffed food items.


heroism

en-noun

heroism (countable and uncountable, plural heroisms)

/ˈhɛɹəʊɪzəm/

/ˈhɛɹoʊɪzəm/

From French héroïsme, equivalent to hero + -ism.

At the time, with the D-Day invasion of Europe going on, their heroism was hardly noticed. Plenty of other heroes were dying elsewhere. Plenty of bigger bits of history were being made.

2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 1948, page 43:

The qualities characteristic of a hero, such as courage, bravery, fortitude, selflessness, etc.; the display of such qualities.

heroizëm

the qualities characteristic of a hero, the display of them


jape

From Middle English japen (“to deceive, play tricks on; act foolishly, joke; have sex with”), of uncertain origin, but perhaps combining Old French japer (“to bark, howl, scream; chatter, gossip”) with gaber (“to mock, deride”).
See also gab, Old Occitan japar, jaupar (“to bark, yelp, yap”), related to Old Saxon galpōn (“to cry loudly, make a noise, brag”) (Low German galpen (“to bark, howl, scream”)), Middle High German gelpfen (“to scream, bark, boast, proclaim”), Old Norse gjálpa (“to yelp”) (dialectal Swedish galpa (“to cry, screech”)). More at yelp, yawp, yap.

cog

[H]e clapped hand to thigh, and laughed and laughed until the air rang again.
"Oho, a jape—a jape indeed!" he roared.

1920, Jeffery Farnol, The Geste of Duke Jocelyn, Fytte 9

“Now I come to think of it, I suppose schooling isn't such a bad idea as long as he can have some japes and tomfoolery with his young cohorts.” “My love, it will be very good for him and very good for us.”

2022 August 9, Ayo Edebiri & Shana Gohd, “Private School” (5:57 from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows, season 4, episode 5, spoken by Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry):


jape

en-verb

jape (third-person singular simple present japes, present participle japing, simple past and past participle japed)

japes (present singular third-person)
japing (participle present)
japed (participle past)
japed (past)

Now the Lond of Egypt longeth to the Soudan, yet the Soudan longeth not to the Lond of Egypt. And when I say this, I do jape with words, and may hap ye understond me not.

1886, Andrew Lang, “To Sir John Manndeville”, in Letters to Dead Authors:

Nay, brother, lay hand on him soon; / For he japed my wife, and made me cuckold.

1510, Hycke Scorner; “Hickscorner”, in Robert Dodsley, William Carew Hazlitt, editors, A Select Collection of Old English Plays, 4th edition, volume 1, London: Reeves and Turner, 1874, page 171:

I jape a wench […] it is better to jape a wenche than to do worce.

1530, John Palsgrave, L'esclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse, Paris: Impremierie Nationale, published 1852, page 589:

Thair is ane hundreth heir sittand by / That luiffis geaping als weill as I.

1540, Sir David Lyndsay, Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, lines 323–324; republished in The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay, volume 2, 1879, page 23:

Sum gois so gymp in gyis / Or sche war kissit plane, / Sche leir be japit thryis.

c. 1550, Alexander Scott, Poems, published 1821, page 26:

Fottere. To jape, to sard, to fucke, to swive, to occupye.

(obsolete) To have sexual intercourse with.


player

From Middle English pleyer, playere, from Old English pleġere (“player, athlete, wrestler”), from Proto-West Germanic *plegārī. Equivalent to play + -er.

inh

All the world's a ſtage, / And all the men and women, merely Players

c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii], page 194, column 1:

One that plays.
(theater) An actor in a dramatic play.

One that plays.
An actor in a dramatic play.


mime

Unadapted borrowing from Dutch mime, from French mime, from Latin mimus, from Ancient Greek μῖμος (mîmos).


rag

→ Kashubian: reksa (United States)

From Middle English ragge, from Old English ragg (suggested by derivative raggiġ (“shaggy; bristly; ragged”)), from Old Norse rǫgg (“tuft; shagginess”), from Proto-Germanic *rawwa-, probably related to *rūhaz. Cognate with Swedish ragg. Related to rug.

(slang, theater) A curtain of various kinds.


rehearse

en-verb

rehearse (third-person singular simple present rehearses, present participle rehearsing, simple past and past participle rehearsed)

rehearses (present singular third-person)
rehearsing (participle present)
rehearsed (participle past)
rehearsed (past)

From Middle English rehersen, from Anglo-Norman reherser (“to repeat word-for-word”).

der

The director rehearsed the cast incessantly in the days leading up to opening night, and as a result they were tired and cranky when it arrived.

He […] has been rehearsed by Madame Defarge as to his having seen Her […]

1859, Charles Dickens, “Darkness”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book III (The Track of a Storm), page 231:

It was plain that he'd been rehearsed a lot, but he wasn't letter-perfect by any manner of means.

1916 March 11, Charles E. Van Loan, “His Folks”, in Saturday Evening Post:

(transitive, theater) To cause to rehearse; to instruct by rehearsal.

doen repeteren

to cause rehearse or instruct by rehearsal


sarcasm

en-noun

sarcasm (countable and uncountable, plural sarcasms)

/ˈsɑːɹˌkæzəm/

/ˈsɑːˌkæzəm/

From Late Latin sarcasmus, from Ancient Greek σαρκασμός (sarkasmós, “a sneer”), from σαρκάζω (sarkázō, “I gnash the teeth (in anger)”, literally “I strip off the flesh”), from σάρξ (sárx, “flesh”).

uder

Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it merited.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

(uncountable) Use of acerbic language to mock or convey contempt, often using irony and (in speech) often marked by overemphasis and sneering.


scene

From Middle French scene, from Latin scaena, scēna, from Ancient Greek σκηνή (skēnḗ, “scene, stage”). Doublet of scena and skene.

der

They stood in the centre of the scene.

to paint scenes

to change the scenes

behind the scenes

(theater) The decorations; furnishings and backgrounds of a stage, representing the place in which the action of a play is set.

səhnə

(theater) decorations, furnishing and backgrounds of a stage — see also decor

The play is divided into three acts, and in total twenty-five scenes.

The most moving scene is the final one, where he realizes he has wasted his whole life.

There were some very erotic scenes in the movie, although it was not classified as pornography.

Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.

1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

(theater, film, television, radio) A part of a dramatic work that is set in the same place or time. In the theatre, generally a number of scenes constitute an act.

տեսարան

(theater, film, television, radio) part of a dramatic work that is set in the same place or time


scene

head

scene c (singular definite scenen, plural indefinite scener)

scenen (definite singular)
scener (indefinite plural)
scene (indefinite nominative singular)
scenen (definite nominative singular)
scener (indefinite nominative plural)
scenerne (definite nominative plural)
scenes (genitive indefinite singular)
scenens (definite genitive singular)
sceners (genitive indefinite plural)
scenernes (definite genitive plural)

Via Latin scaena from Ancient Greek σκηνή (skēnḗ, “scene, stage”).

stage (platform for performing in a theatre)


scene

scenen (definite singular)
scener (indefinite plural)
scenene (definite plural)
sene (alternative)

From Ancient Greek σκηνή (skēnḗ, “scene, stage”), via Latin scaena.


scene

scenen (definite singular)
scenar (indefinite plural)
scenane (definite plural)
scena (definite singular)
scener (indefinite plural)
scenene (definite plural)
sene (alternative)


soubrette

Borrowed from French soubrette, from Occitan soubreta (“coy”) (feminine of soubret), from soubra (Provençal sobrar), from Latin superare (“be above”).

At present I have only a soubrette's part, with an apron and pockets, and a ballad; but, as I said before, luck's all in this world, and I have every requisite for being lucky.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Success”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 77:

And then too it was exhilarating to see the baron come sailing in with a pair of soubrettes on his arm—each time a different pair.

1936, Henry Miller, “The Tailor Shop”, in Black Spring, Paris: The Obelisk Press […], →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, 1963, →ISBN, page 98:

This version of the fragile, yet touching story accents the romance and courtship of the schoolmaster, properly called Mr. Chipping, and the music hall soubrette he falls in love with while vacationing in Pompeii.

1969, Film Bulletin, volume 38, page 127:

The servants in the hall tonight are whitely-wigged black slaves in livery of a certain grade of satin and refinement of lace,– black Major-domos and black Soubrettes.

A female attendant or servant, especially one who is cheeky or mischievous, often featuring in theatrical comedies.


soubrette

(theater) maid (female servant (role) in a theatrical performance)


spike

From Middle English spike, spyke, spik, from Old Norse spík (“spike, sprig”), from Proto-Germanic *spīkō (“stick, splinter, point”), from Proto-Indo-European *spey- (“to be pointed; sharp point, stick”). Cognate with Icelandic spík (“spike”), Swedish spik (“spike, nail”), Dutch spijker (“nail”), Old English spīcing (“spike”), and Latin spīca (“ear of corn”), which may have influenced some senses.

шпайкове

informal: running shoes with spikes in the soles

Sometimes actors set props on the spikes, or sometimes a deckhand will do it, depending on the action of the play.

2020, John Ramsey Holloway, Zachary Stribling, Illustrated Theatre Production Guide, page 15:

(theater) A mark indicating where a prop or other item should be placed on stage.


trope

Japanese: トロープ (torōpu)

Korean: 트로프 (teuropeu)

From Latin tropus, from Ancient Greek τρόπος (trópos, “a manner, style, turn, way; a trope or figure of speech; a mode in music; a mode or mood in logic”), related to τροπή (tropḗ, “solstice; trope; turn”) and τρέπειν (trépein, “to turn”); compare turn of phrase. The verb is derived from the noun.

You have to give director Colm McCarthy, a Scottish TV veteran making his feature film debut, and writer Mike Carey, adapting his own novel, credit for attempting the seemingly impossible task of doing something new with the zombie subgenre. And by blending it with the common YA [young adult] trope of a young female protagonist who leads the world into a new revolutionary era, they almost get there—largely thanks to newcomer [Sennia] Nanua, who presents her character's grappling with complex themes of identity and original sin with a childlike guilelessness.

2017 February 23, Katie Rife, “The Girl With All The Gifts tries to put a fresh spin on overripe zombie clichés”, in The A.V. Club:

They have completely supported the Russians diplomatically, they’ve abstained in key votes at the United Nations, they’ve absolutely cynically repeated all the Russian tropes, particularly in places like Africa and Latin America – [by]^([sic]) blaming Nato and all of this stuff.

2023 July 20, Helen Davidson, quoting Richard Moore, “China complicit in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, says MI6 chief”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Contrary to the familiar trope that regulation kills innovation, Harding argues that in fact the political, moral and legal clarity provided by the Warnock commission spurred investment and economic growth.

2024 May 11, John Thornhill, “More than human?”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 8:

(art, literature) Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif.

троп

art, literature: something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature

Is not the trope of muſic, to avoid or ſlide from the cloſe or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric, of deceiving expectation? Is not the delight of the quavering upon a ſtop in muſic, the ſame with the playing of light upon the water?

1765, Francis Bacon, “The Second Book of Francis Bacon: Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human”, in The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England. In Five Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for A[ndrew] Millar, in the Strand, →OCLC, page 53:

If the antiphon comes to an end with the “Praeparatio” trope, a musical difficulty is presented by the trope’s cadence. Although the antiphon is in the E-plagal mode and the first three trope elements cadence on E, this trope cadences on G, a rare cadence tone in this mode.

1983, John G. Johnstone, “Beyond a Chant: ‘Tui sunt caeli’ and Its Tropes”, in Studies in the History of Music, volumes 1 (Music and Language), New York, N.Y.: Broude Brothers, →ISBN, pages 24–37; reprinted in Alejandro Enrique Planchart, editor, Embellishing the Liturgy: Tropes and Polyphony, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2016, →ISBN, page 138:

A short cadence at the end of the melody in some early music.

troop

music: short cadence at the end of the melody

The eighty six-note segments were originally tabulated by Hauer and are the basis of his twelve-tone system. Each of [Josef Matthias] Hauer's tropes consists of two hexachords of mutually exclusive content, so that each pair of hexachords includes all twelve tones of the semitonal scale. Only eight hexachords may be associated in this way with their own transpositions. These generate the eight tropes illustrated in examples 141 and 128. Each of the remaining seventy-two hexachords must be paired with a dissimilar hexachord in order to form a trope.

1963, George Perle, “Simultaneity”, in Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, →OCLC, page 120:

twelve-tone technique
twelve-tone technique

A pair of complementary hexachords in twelve-tone technique.

The Torah was chanted in a loud and strong voice so that all could hear. This cantillation of the Torah—trope—is shown by musical notation which serves grammatical and exegetical functions, ta'amay hamikra or ta'amay n'ginah. They put down in a final form an oral tradition that had been maintained for centuries. The Ashkenazim today have six systems of cantillation, each reflective of the texts and time of chanting. For example, on Tishah B'av the tunes are sad and doleful; on Purim the trope resembles a speedy narrative; the readings of Yamim Nora'im are quite majestic, and so on.

1985, Steven M. Brown, “The Languages of Prayer”, in Stephen Garfinkel, editor, Higher and Higher: Making Jewish Prayer Part of Us, Department of Youth Activities, United Synagogue of America, →OCLC, section 3 (The Language of Music), page 45:

The trope does not appear on the handwritten Torah scroll, but the assignment of notes for each word was fixed long ago and is accepted by Jewish communities around the world; the trope now appears in nearly every Jewish printed Bible. […] The symbols that signify the trope for the Hebrew text were introduced at the end of the 10th century of the Common Era.

2006, Sara E. Karesh, Mitchell M. Hurvitz, “trope”, in Encyclopedia of Judaism (Encyclopedia of World Religions), New York, N.Y.: Facts On File, Infobase Publishing, →ISBN, page 526, column 1:

(Judaism) A cantillation pattern, or one of the marks that represents it.

troop

music, Judaism: cantillation pattern or mark


trope

en-verb

trope (third-person singular simple present tropes, present participle troping, simple past and past participle troped)

tropes (present singular third-person)
troping (participle present)
troped (participle past)
troped (past)

"So clomb this first grand Thief into God's Fold" (4.192), [John] Milton writes, thus troping Satan's transgression as neither deception, seduction, nor disobedience, though he presents it in those terms elsewhere, but rather as robbery.

1999, Heather Dubrow, “'A Doubtfull Sense of Things': Thievery in The Faerie Queene 6.10 and 6.11”, in Patrick Cheney, Lauren Silberman, editors, Worldmaking Spenser: Explorations in the Early Modern Age (Studies in the English Renaissance), Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, →ISBN, page 204:

It suggests that the "masculine" (or exaggeratedly masculine) style of Death in the Afternoon [by Ernest Hemingway] is not a formal or immanent attribute of the text but must be "engendered" through acts of interpretation. And it suggests that what was at stake in this "engendering" was nothing less than the preservation of powerful forms of authentic masculinity in the face of a work that, puzzlingly, seemed to trope the very notions of masculinity and modernism.

2002, Thomas Strychacz, “'The Sort of Thing You Should Not Admit': Ernest Hemingway's Aesthetic of Emotional Restraint”, in Milette Shamir, Jennifer Travis, editors, Boy's Don't Cry?: Rethinking Narratives of Masculinity and Emotion in the U.S., New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 151:

(transitive) Senses relating chiefly to art or literature.

To represent something figuratively or metaphorically, especially as a literary motif.


wheeze

From Middle English whesen, perhaps from Old Norse hvæsa (“to hiss”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwes- (“to pant”).

An ordinary whisper exaggerated so as to produce the hoarse sound known as the "stage whisper"; a forcible whisper with some admixture of tone.


manet

From Latin manet (“he remains”), manent (“they remain”), inflections of maneō.

Exeunt Princess and maidens. Manet Lady Blanche.

(theater) Used in stage directions; literally, he, she or it remains. Compare exit, exeunt.


ad-lib

ad-lib (third-person singular simple present ad-libs, present participle ad-libbing, simple past and past participle ad-libbed)

ad-libs (present singular third-person)
ad-libbing (participle present)
ad-libbed (participle past)
ad-libbed (past)
adlib (alternative)

desc

Korean: 드립 (deurip, “inappropriate or risqué joke”)

Hope’s onstage ad-libbing generated more humor and attention than the show’s lacklustre libretto.

I watched Jeb Bush as his brother spoke. He paid attention, grinned and laughed, even ad-libbed when called upon.

To improvise all or part of a speech or other performance, especially in comedy.


screwball comedy

en-noun

screwball comedy (countable and uncountable, plural screwball comedies)

(uncountable) A genre of motion picture or play where opposites were juxtaposed; characterized by snappy dialog, and a blend of sophistication and slapstick

(countable) A motion picture or play of this genre.


había una vez

(used at the beginnings of fairytales) once upon a time


love triangle

/ˈlʌv ˌtɹaɪ.æŋɡəl/

La Battaglia di Legnano is a patriotic melodrama with a love triangle theme included.

1961 December 12, The Times, p.5 col. F:

By placing Max and Onno in a love triangle with Ada, Mr. Mulisch achieves an emotional depth that recalls Francois Truffaut's classic film “Jules and Jim.”

1997 January 5, Jack Miles, “On a Mission From God”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

A situation in which two suitors vie or compete for the love of the same person.

liefdesdriehoek

situation in which two people vie for the love of a third


संधि

saṃdhí (romanization)
संधिः (nominative singular)
संधी (dual nominative)
संधयः (nominative plural)
संधे (singular vocative)
संधी (dual vocative)
संधयः (plural vocative)
संधिम् (accusative singular)
संधी (accusative dual)
संधीन् (accusative plural)
संधिना (instrumental singular)
संधिभ्याम् (dual instrumental)
संधिभिः (instrumental plural)
संधये (dative singular)
संधिभ्याम् (dative dual)
संधिभ्यः (dative plural)
संधेः (ablative singular)
संधिभ्याम् (ablative dual)
संधिभ्यः (ablative plural)
संधेः (genitive singular)
संध्योः (dual genitive)
संधीनाम् (genitive plural)
संधौ (locative singular)
संध्योः (dual locative)
संधिषु (locative plural)
सन्धि (alternative)

sa-decl-noun

Masculine i-stem declension of संधि

→ English: sandhi

→ Marathi: संधी (sandhī)

Pali: sandhi

→ Tamil: சந்தி (canti)


qat

az-noun

qat (definite accusative qatı, plural qatlar)

qatı (accusative definite)
qatlar (plural)
qatım (first-person nominative possessive singular)
qatlarım (first-person nominative possessive singular)
qatın (nominative possessive second-person singular)
qatların (nominative possessive second-person singular)
qatı (nominative possessive singular third-person)
qatları (nominative possessive singular third-person)
qatımız (first-person nominative plural possessive)
qatlarımız (first-person nominative plural possessive)
qatınız (nominative plural possessive second-person)
qatlarınız (nominative plural possessive second-person)
qatı (nominative plural possessive third-person)
qatları (nominative plural possessive third-person)
qatımı (accusative first-person possessive singular)
qatlarımı (accusative first-person possessive singular)
qatını (accusative possessive second-person singular)
qatlarını (accusative possessive second-person singular)
qatını (accusative possessive singular third-person)
qatlarını (accusative possessive singular third-person)
qatımızı (accusative first-person plural possessive)
qatlarımızı (accusative first-person plural possessive)
qatınızı (accusative plural possessive second-person)
qatlarınızı (accusative plural possessive second-person)
qatını (accusative plural possessive third-person)
qatlarını (accusative plural possessive third-person)
qatıma (dative first-person possessive singular)
qatlarıma (dative first-person possessive singular)
qatına (dative possessive second-person singular)
qatlarına (dative possessive second-person singular)
qatına (dative possessive singular third-person)
qatlarına (dative possessive singular third-person)
qatımıza (dative first-person plural possessive)
qatlarımıza (dative first-person plural possessive)
qatınıza (dative plural possessive second-person)
qatlarınıza (dative plural possessive second-person)
qatına (dative plural possessive third-person)
qatlarına (dative plural possessive third-person)
qatımda (first-person locative possessive singular)
qatlarımda (first-person locative possessive singular)
qatında (locative possessive second-person singular)
qatlarında (locative possessive second-person singular)
qatında (locative possessive singular third-person)
qatlarında (locative possessive singular third-person)
qatımızda (first-person locative plural possessive)
qatlarımızda (first-person locative plural possessive)
qatınızda (locative plural possessive second-person)
qatlarınızda (locative plural possessive second-person)
qatında (locative plural possessive third-person)
qatlarında (locative plural possessive third-person)
qatımdan (ablative first-person possessive singular)
qatlarımdan (ablative first-person possessive singular)
qatından (ablative possessive second-person singular)
qatlarından (ablative possessive second-person singular)
qatından (ablative possessive singular third-person)
qatlarından (ablative possessive singular third-person)
qatımızdan (ablative first-person plural possessive)
qatlarımızdan (ablative first-person plural possessive)
qatınızdan (ablative plural possessive second-person)
qatlarınızdan (ablative plural possessive second-person)
qatından (ablative plural possessive third-person)
qatlarından (ablative plural possessive third-person)
qatımın (first-person genitive possessive singular)
qatlarımın (first-person genitive possessive singular)
qatının (genitive possessive second-person singular)
qatlarının (genitive possessive second-person singular)
qatının (genitive possessive singular third-person)
qatlarının (genitive possessive singular third-person)
qatımızın (first-person genitive plural possessive)
qatlarımızın (first-person genitive plural possessive)
qatınızın (genitive plural possessive second-person)
qatlarınızın (genitive plural possessive second-person)
qatının (genitive plural possessive third-person)
qatlarının (genitive plural possessive third-person)

(theater) circle (a curved upper tier of seats in a theater)


cirque

→ Arabic: سِيرْك (sīrk)

→ Persian: سیرک (sirk)

→ English: cirque

→ Turkish: sirk


jury

→ Dutch: jury (or via French)

→ Finnish: jyry

→ French: jury (see there for further descendants)

→ Hungarian: zsűri

→ Macedonian: жири (žiri)

→ Norman: jury

→ Norwegian Bokmål: jury

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: jury

→ Portuguese: júri

→ Swedish: jury

From Middle English jure, from Anglo-Norman juree, from Medieval Latin iūrāta, from Latin iūrō (“I swear or take an oath”).

The jury which decides on the first night usually seals the fate of the season.

1828, The New Monthly Magazine, page 418:

The widespread idea that before a first-night the audience, dressed to the nose, dines en masse at the Colony and proceeds elegantly to the scene in Hispanos is as fabulous as that which imagines it assembles at Lindy's delicatessen in yesterday's shirt and moves on to the theatre in garbage wagons. And no less spurious is the theory that, in either case or in both together, the jury is possessed of a remarkably rich acumen in the matter of theatrical values.

1971, George Jean Nathan, The Entertainment of a Nation: Or, Three-sheets in the Wind, page 130:

(theater, slang) The audience attending the first night of a performance, whose reaction may determine whether it succeeds or fails.


jury

Unadapted borrowing from French jury, from English jury, from Middle English jure, from Anglo-Norman juree, from Medieval Latin iūrāta, from Latin iūrō.

(theater) jury (group of judges in a competition)


colossal

Pseudo-anglicism, derived from colossal. First attested in 1986.

(film, theater) high-budget film or play with a high production value, ensemble cast, etc.


variety

en-noun

variety (countable and uncountable, plural varieties)

varieties (plural)
variete (alternative)
varietie (alternative)
variëty (alternative)

From Middle French varieté (“variety”) (modern French variété (“variety; genre, type”)) or directly from its etymon Latin varietās (“difference; diversity, variety”) + English -ty (suffix forming abstract nouns from adjectives); by surface analysis, various + -ety. Varietās is derived from varius (“different, diverse, various; variegated”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- (“to abandon; to give out; to leave”)) + -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being). The English word displaced the native Old English mislīcnes.
Sense 1.3.2 (“total number of distinct states of a system; logarithm to the base 2 of the total number of distinct states of a system”) was coined by the English psychiatrist William Ross Ashby (1903–1972) in his work An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956).
Cognates
* Galician variedade (“variety”)
* Italian varietà (“difference; variety”)
* Portuguese variedade (“variety”)
* Spanish variedad (“breed; variety”)

der

(radio, television, theater) Ellipsis of variety performance. or variety show (“a type of entertainment featuring a succession of short, unrelated performances by various artistes such as (depending on the medium) acrobats, comedians, dancers, magicians, singers, etc.”).

variety performance
variety performance#English

variety performance

(radio, television, theater) The kind of entertainment given in variety performances or shows; also, the production of, or performance in, variety performances or shows.


prompt

en-verb

prompt (third-person singular simple present prompts, present participle prompting, simple past and past participle prompted)

prompts (present singular third-person)
prompting (participle present)
prompted (participle past)
prompted (past)

From French prompt, from Latin prōmptus (“visible, apparent, evident”), past participle of prōmō (“to take or bring out or forth, produce, bring to light”), from prō (“forth, forward”) + emō (“to take, acquire, buy”).

der

If he forgets his words I will prompt him.

(transitive, theater and television) To show or tell (an actor/person) the words they should be saying, or actions they should be doing.

sufloj

to show or tell an actor/person the words they should be saying, or actions they should be doing


prompter

The loud ringing of the prompter's bell made her spring suddenly away; and two of his companions, each taking an arm, hurried him away also. How glad would he have been to have left the party: his thoughts were in a tumult; duties and inclinations warred together—nay, his very sense of right was confounded.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Success”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 79:

(theater) The person who does the prompting.


Chronos

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek Χρόνος (Khrónos), from Ancient Greek χρόνος (khrónos, “time”)

lbor

Chronus (alternative)
Khronos (alternative)

(Greek mythology) The personification of time.


Chronos

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek Χρόνος (Khrónos).

(Greek mythology) Chronos, Chronus (personification)


acteur

fr-noun

acteur m (plural acteurs, feminine actrice)

→ German: Akteur

→ Romanian: actor

→ Ottoman Turkish: آقتور (aktör)

Turkish: aktör

Inherited from Middle French acteur, from Latin actor.


Father Christmas

en-proper noun

Father Christmas (plural Father Christmases or Father Christmasses or Fathers Christmas)

Father Christmases (plural)
Father Christmasses (plural)
Fathers Christmas (plural)

The old men who had moustaches came with their breath frozen on them, and looked like so many old Father Christmasses: although all seemed poor and were indifferently clad, they almost all looked in good health and spirits.

1879 May, “Famine Relief. Welcome Words from Shan-si in a letter from Mr. James.”, in J[ames] Hudson Taylor, editor, China’s Millions, number 47, London: Morgan and Scott, […], page 63, column 2:

Again Donna Maria’s anger was interrupted by the rising of the curtain; or, rather, diverted from Carlo’s décadent æsthetics to the extreme badness of the mise en scène, to rows of Father Christmasses and ladies in grey waterproofs, who bellowed and gesticulated as unhappy shades at the gates of hell, and the chains of thick thighed and tight waisted furies who capered about in the rose-coloured Bengal light.

1889 June, Vernon Lee [pseudonym; Violet Paget], “Orpheus in Rome: Irrelevant Talks on the Use of the Beautiful”, in The Contemporary Review, volume LV, London: Isbister and Company […], section I, page 833:

The five Father Christmases walked slowly on, oblivious alike of the children who gaped at them and the man-hunt that was taking place under their noses.

1939, Nicholas Blake [pseudonym; Cecil Day-Lewis], The Smiler with the Knife, Harper & Row, page 199:

‘Yeah, I’ve seen those things they think are gnomes,’ said Ron, bent double with his head in a peony bush. ‘Like fat little Father Christmases with fishing rods …’

1998 July 2, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], “The Burrow”, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter; 2), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

At the beginning of the 1990s, therefore, Bardo moved to the current establishment, and was finally able to house his Father Christmases in the style they deserve.

2003, Piers Letcher, Eccentric France: The Bradt Guide to Mad, Magical and Marvellous France, Bradt Travel Guides; The Globe Pequot Press, →ISBN, page 207:

At Christmas, also in 2004, members processed as Fathers Christmas, employing the slogan ‘Put the fathers back into Christmas’.

2007, Duncan Watts, Pressure Groups (Politics Study Guides), Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 122:

After the confrontation with the fictitious peer’s solution process, namely actually drawing rectangles around the Fathers Christmas’ irregular shapes, in Phase 4, another nine of the remaining 22 students (five 12–13- and four 15–16-year olds^([sic])) exchanged their initial linear answer for the correct nonlinear one.

2007, Dirk De Bock, Wim Van Dooren, Dirk Janssens, Lieven Verschaffel, The Illusion of Linearity: From Analysis to Improvement, Springer, →ISBN, page 103:

I was paid £1.92 an hour to wear a pink tutu and entertain the children waiting to see the two Father Christmases (one on either side of the grotto) as the increasingly irate families inched their way past the hour wait markers.

2011, Clare Hemmings, “Crossings”, in Kathy Davis, Mary Evans, editors, Transatlantic Conversations: Feminism as Travelling Theory, Routledge, published 2016, →ISBN, part I (Becoming a Feminist in a Transatlantic Context), page 29:

The smiling carol singers and the laughing Father Christmasses on the television seemed to make my misery more acute.

2016, Bryony Gordon, “I think I might be dying”, in Mad Girl, London: Headline Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 20:

In 1836, English artist Robert Seymour illustrated Thomas K. Hervey’s Book of Christmas with a couple of boozy, wild-haired Fathers Christmas that set the tone for the next fifty years in which the London newspapers were more likely to emphasize the good father’s drinking than anything else.

2020, Tom A. Jerman, Santa Claus Worldwide: A History of St. Nicholas and Other Holiday Gift-Bringers, McFarland & Company, →ISBN, pages 166–167:

In 1958, it was reported that for "the fourth year in succession, staff of four South London stations have combined to decorate the booking hall at Peckham Rye station". They installed a nativity scene, models of Father Christmas, and a sleigh driven by huskies, and Christmas trees were placed around the station.

2023 December 27, David Turner, “Silent lines...”, in RAIL, number 999, page 29:

(folklore) A mythical figure said to bring presents to people (especially children) at Christmas time.


stand-up

en-noun

stand-up (countable and uncountable, plural stand-ups)

→⇒ Finnish: stand-up-komedia

⇒ Icelandic: uppistand

→ Japanese: スタンドアップ (sutandoappu)

→ Korean: 스탠드업 (seutaendeueop)

desc

סְטֶנְדְּאָפּ

→ Hebrew: סְטֶנְדְּאָפּ (sténdap)

→ Hebrew: סְטֶנְדְּאָפּ (sténdap)

→ Polish: stand-up

→ Russian: стенда́п (stendáp)

→⇒ Spanish: standupero

→ Swedish: ståuppare (calque)

Sometimes the club has music, sometimes stand-up.

(uncountable) A performance of stand-up comedy; jokes delivered standing on a stage


stand-up

stand-up (nominative singular)
stand-upy (nominative plural)
stand-upu (genitive singular)
stand-upów (genitive plural)
stand-upowi (dative singular)
stand-upom (dative plural)
stand-up (accusative singular)
stand-upy (accusative plural)
stand-upem (instrumental singular)
stand-upami (instrumental plural)
stand-upie (locative singular)
stand-upach (locative plural)
stand-upie (singular vocative)
stand-upy (plural vocative)

Unadapted borrowing from English stand-up.


俳優

CJKV/code

Sino-Xenic (俳優):
* → Japanese: 俳優(はいゆう) (haiyū)
* → Korean: 배우(俳優) (bae'u)

/pʰaɪ̯³⁵ joʊ̯⁵⁵/

/pʰaːi̯²¹ jɐu̯⁵⁵/

/pʰaɪ̯³⁵ joʊ̯⁵⁵/

/pʰaːi̯²¹ jɐu̯⁵⁵/


actrix

la-noun

āctrīx f (genitive āctrīcis, masculine āctor); third declension

āctrīx (canonical feminine)
āctrīcis (genitive)
āctor (masculine)
āctrīx (nominative singular)
āctrīcēs (nominative plural)
āctrīcis (genitive singular)
āctrīcum (genitive plural)
āctrīcī (dative singular)
āctrīcibus (dative plural)
āctrīcem (accusative singular)
āctrīcēs (accusative plural)
āctrīce (ablative singular)
āctrīcibus (ablative plural)
āctrīx (singular vocative)
āctrīcēs (plural vocative)

Asturian: actriz

→ Catalan: actriu

→ English: actrix

Galician: actriz

Italian: attrice

→ Middle French: actrice

desctree

French: actrice
→ Bulgarian: актри́са (aktrísa)
→ Dutch: actrice
→ English: actrice
→ Norman: actrice
→ Ottoman Turkish: آقتریس (aktris)
Turkish: aktris
→ Russian: актри́са (aktrísa)
→ Azerbaijani: aktrisa
→ Uzbek: aktrisa
→ Yiddish: אַקטריסע (aktrise)
→ Swedish: aktris
→ Ukrainian: актри́са (aktrýsa)

Portuguese: atriz

→ Spanish: actriz

From āctus + -trīx, from agō (“do, act”).

actress, actor (female) (person who performs in a theatrical play or movie)


actio

la-noun

āctiō f (genitive āctiōnis); third declension

āctiō (canonical feminine)
āctiōnis (genitive)
āctiō (nominative singular)
āctiōnēs (nominative plural)
āctiōnis (genitive singular)
āctiōnum (genitive plural)
āctiōnī (dative singular)
āctiōnibus (dative plural)
āctiōnem (accusative singular)
āctiōnēs (accusative plural)
āctiōne (ablative singular)
āctiōnibus (ablative plural)
āctiō (singular vocative)
āctiōnēs (plural vocative)

→ Asturian: aición, aciu

→ Belarusian: а́кцыя (ákcyja)

→ Catalan: acció

→ Corsican: azzione, azzioni

→ Czech: akce

→ Dutch: actie

→ German: Aktie

→ Danish: aktie

→ Malay: aksi

Friulian: azion

→ Galician: acción

→ Georgian: აქცია (akcia)

→ German: Aktion

→ Italian: azione

Ladin: azion

→ Ladino: aksión

→ Occitan: accion

→ Old French: action

desctree

→ Middle English: accion, accioun, accyon, accyoune, acsyon, action, actioun
English: action
→ Arabic: أَكْشِن (ʔakšin)
→ Bulgarian: екшън (ekšǎn)
→ German: Action
→ Irish: aicsean
→ Hebrew: אקשן (akshn)
→ Japanese: アクション (akushon)
→ Korean: 액션 (aeksyeon)
→ Russian: экшн (ekšn)
Scots: action

French: action

→ Romanian: acțiune

Piedmontese: assion

→ Polish: akcja, akcyja (Middle Polish), akcya (pre-reform orthography (1816)) (learned)
→ Kashubian: akcjô

→ Portuguese: ação

→ Russian: а́кция (ákcija)

→ Serbo-Croatian: а̀кција, àkcija

Sicilian: azziuni, azzioni

→ Maltese: azzjoni

→ Spanish: acción

→ Ukrainian: а́кція (ákcija)

From āctum + -tiō, using the supine of agō (“do, make”).

(drama) the action, plot, series of events


sink

a bathroom sink sink (canonical)
sinks (plural)

From Middle English synken, from Old English sincan, from Proto-West Germanic *sinkwan, from Proto-Germanic *sinkwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sengʷ- (“to fall, sink”).
Compare West Frisian sinke, Low German sinken, Dutch zinken, German sinken, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål synke, Swedish sjunka. In the causative sense, it replaced Old English senċan (“make sink”) from Proto-Germanic *sankwijaną.

der

(theater) A stage trapdoor for shifting scenery.


alienation

en-noun

alienation (usually uncountable, plural alienations)

From Middle English alienacioun, borrowed from Old French alienacion, itself borrowed from Latin aliēnātiōnem.


tomfoolery

tomfoolery (countable and uncountable, plural tomfooleries)


cavea

la-noun

cavea f (genitive caveae); first declension

caveae (genitive)
cavea (nominative singular)
caveae (nominative plural)
caveae (genitive singular)
caveārum (genitive plural)
caveae (dative singular)
caveīs (dative plural)
caveam (accusative singular)
caveās (accusative plural)
caveā (ablative singular)
caveīs (ablative plural)
cavea (singular vocative)
caveae (plural vocative)

Eastern Romance

Istro-Romanian: cåibĕ

Gallo-Italic

Ligurian: gàggia

→ Italian: gaggia

Romagnol: gàbia

Italo-Dalmatian

Italian: gabbia

>? Sicilian: cagghia

Old French: cage

French: cage

desctree

→ Middle English: cage, kage, gage
English: cage
Scots: cage

→ Sicilian: gaggia, jaggia

Old Occitan:

Catalan: gàbia

Occitan: gàbia

Rhaeto-Romance

Friulian: cabie, chebe

Venetan: càbia, gàbia, chèba, ghèba

West Iberian

Old Galician-Portuguese:

Galician: gabia

Portuguese: gaiva

Spanish: gavia

Borrowings

→ Catalan: càvea

→ English: cavea (learned)

→ Italian: cavea

→ Middle Dutch: coye, koye

Dutch: kooi (see there for further descendants)

→ Middle Low German: kōje

Low German: Kooj

→ Danish: køje

→ German: Koje

→ Icelandic: koja

→ Norwegian: køye

→ Swedish: koj

→ Old High German: chevia, kevia, keba

Middle High German: kevje

German: Käfig

→ Middle High German: kouwe

German: Kaue

→ Proto-Basque: *kabia

Basque: habia

→ Portuguese: cávea, gávea

→ Spanish: cávea

From cavus (similar to alveus from alvus).


nervous hit

But it hardly mattered; her singing (including "My Own Best Friend" made into a solo) and performing were so strong that few quibbled, especially as she was accomplishing a valiant task by selling out a new, somewhat nervous hit while its regular star recovered.

(theater, idiomatic, England) A production which receives generally favorable notice, but is not assured of success.


rhubarb

en-noun

rhubarb (countable and uncountable, plural rhubarbs)

rhubarbs (plural)
rhubarb rhubarb (alternative)
rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb (alternative)

Attributed to the circa 1852 practice by the theatre company of English actor Charles Kean (1811–1868) at the Princess’s Theatre, London, of actors saying the word rhubarb repetitively to mimic the sound of indistinct conversation, the word having been chosen because it does not have harsh-sounding consonants or clear vowels.
The baseball senses are said to have been coined by the American sports writer Garry Schumacher and popularized by the American baseball commentator Red Barber (1908–1992). Barber also claimed to have started using the word in the 1940s, based on the practice in “early radio dramas” (presumably in the US, circa 1930) of actors repetitively voicing rhubarb. However, unlike the UK usage, he felt the practice applied to muttering by an angry mob, and so applied the word to arguments on the baseball field where he could not distinguish the words.

It [the film The Picnic] wasn't actually a silent film; there were sound effects, but the dialogue was a rhubarb-ish series of grunts and mutters.

2001, Ronnie Corbett, High Hopes: My Autobiography, London: Ebury Press, published 2016, →ISBN, page 253:

(originally theater, uncountable) General background noise caused by several simultaneous indecipherable conversations, which is created in films, stage plays, etc., by actors repeating the word rhubarb; hence, such noise in other settings.


rhubarb

en-verb

rhubarb (third-person singular simple present rhubarbs, present participle rhubarbing, simple past and past participle rhubarbed)

rhubarbs (present singular third-person)
rhubarbing (participle present)
rhubarbed (participle past)
rhubarbed (past)

At Rick's side our local Liberal Party Chairman is smacking his yeoman's paws together and rhubarbing ecstatically in Rick's ear.

1986, John le Carré [pseudonym; David John Moore Cornwell], chapter 11, in A Perfect Spy, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN; 1st Pocket Books trade paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, January 2003, →ISBN, page 349:

I suspect it's these pictures that —— and his cronies have in mind when they rhubarb on about iconicity and retro imagery and the 'solid, uncomplicated, talismanic Englishness' (that is, counterfeit Americanness) of the immediate post-war years that I'm supposed to represent.

1991, Gordon Burn, chapter 5, in Alma Cogan, London: Vintage Books, →ISBN; republished London: Faber and Faber, 2004, →ISBN:

They gathered under the giant chandelier, elegant little women with scraped-back hair, feet in the turned-out position, arms in the first or, for those with handbags, in the third, and one or two sur le cou-de-pied, for all the world as if they were rhubarbing in a crowd scene twenty-five years before.

2008, John Mole, “Mixed Feelings about the Tutu”, in I Was a Potato Oligarch: Travels and Travails in the New Russia, London, Boston, Mass.: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, →ISBN, page 96:

Experienced spielers know that, if they keep rhubarbing away in an unrelenting monotone, their audience will soon become hypnotised by the sound of the words and lose grasp of their meaning.

2013, Michael O'Donnell, “Medical Committeespiel”, in The Barefaced Doctor: A Mischievous Medical Companion, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire: Matador, →ISBN, page 232:

They pick up massive folders of paper and leave, rhubarbing as they go.

2014, Jon Brittain, Matt Tedford, Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho, London, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, →ISBN, page 17:

Doors opened, food prep clattered, and the crowd rhubarbed as everyone hurried in to get their money's worth. The expected smells competed with each other to dominate the room: cheese, pasta, meat … dairy, doughy, dead. And presumably delicious.

2015 September, Gordon Edgar, “Mac and Cheese, Class War, and the Many Meanings of Cheddar”, in Cheddar: A Journey to the Heart of America’s Most Iconic Cheese, White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green Publishing, →ISBN, page 1:

(intransitive, originally theater) Of an actor in a film, stage play, etc.: to repeat the word rhubarb to create the sound of indistinct conversation; hence, to converse indistinctly, to mumble.


flipper

From flip + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian Flappert (“flipper, wing”).

cog

The flipper is designed to give support by standing at a 90-degree angle to the flat. It probably gets its name from its appearance: cut out like a piece of profile scenery, it resembles the flipper of a marine animal, […]

1998, Martin Harrison, The Language of Theatre, page 104:

When standing alone, a flat may have a small extension, a FLIPPER, for added strength.

2013, Jonathan Law, The Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre:

(theater) A small flat used to support a larger one.


role

role (nominative singular)
role (nominative plural)
role (genitive singular)
rolí (genitive plural)
roli (dative singular)
rolím (dative plural)
roli (accusative singular)
role (accusative plural)
role (singular vocative)
role (plural vocative)
roli (locative singular)
rolích (locative plural)
rolí (instrumental singular)
rolemi (instrumental plural)

Borrowed from German Rolle, from Old French rolle, role (“parchment scroll, inventory”), from Latin rotula, rotulus (“little wheel”), which is a diminutive of rota (“wheel”).

lines (spoken text of an actor playing a part)


parabola

parabola (nominative singular)
parabole (nominative plural)
paraboli (genitive singular)
paraboli (genitive plural)
parabol (genitive plural)
paraboli (dative singular)
parabolom (dative plural)
parabolę (accusative singular)
parabole (accusative plural)
parabolą (instrumental singular)
parabolami (instrumental plural)
paraboli (locative singular)
parabolach (locative plural)
parabolo (singular vocative)
parabole (plural vocative)

Learned borrowing from Latin parabola. Doublet of parol.


funny

en-adj

funny (comparative funnier, superlative funniest)

funnier (comparative)
funniest (superlative)

When I went to the circus, I only found the clowns funny.


toilet humour

(euphemistic) Scatological or vulgar language intended to be amusing.

poep-en-pieshumor

a scatological or vulgar phrase intended to be amusing


amphitheatre

amphitheatres (plural)
amphitheater (alternative)

/ˈæmfɪˌθiːətə/

/ˈæmfɪˌθɪətə/

/ˈæmfiˌθiːətə/

From Latin amphitheatrum, from Ancient Greek ἀμφιθέατρον (amphithéatron) from ἀμφί (amphí, “on both sides”) + θέᾱτρον (théātron, “theatre”).

compound

Ancient Roman amphitheatres were mostly oval or circular in plan, with seating tiers that surrounded the central performance area, like a modern open-air stadium.

We had previously visited the building prepared for the assemblage, which was a vast pentagonal semicircular amphitheatre of painted wood and canvas work, ...

1816, John Cam Hobhouse Baron Broughton, The Substance of Some Letters, page 192:

The dry quarry in Shrewsbury [was] in use from at least 1445-6 [...until] 1568-9 (and perhaps beyond)[. ...] Location of this as the site of a semicircular amphitheatre [used in the 1400s and 1500s] is confirmed by the evidence, published in total for the first time in the present volume.

1994, J. A. B. Somerset, Shropshire, University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 388:

theatre in the round
theater-in-the-round

An open, outdoor theatre (which may be a theatre in the round, or have a stage with seating on only one side), especially one from the classical period of ancient Greece or Rome, or a modern venue of similar design.


amphitheater

The symphony warmed up inside the amphitheater while the audience crowded around outside.


Thalia

From Ancient Greek Θαλία (Thalía) or Θάλεια (Tháleia); from Ancient Greek θάλλω (thállō, “flourish, to be verdant”).

uder

(Greek mythology) The Muse of comedy and idyllic poetry.

(astronomy) 23 Thalia, a main belt asteroid.

(rare) A female given name from Ancient Greek.


chunk

Variant of chuck; or alternatively a diminutive of chump (“chunk; block”) + *-k (diminutive suffix) (compare hunk from hump, etc.).

You begin gathering two hours of dependable comedy by developing that first three-minute chunk. When you're satisfied with it, you create another three minutes of laughs, then another three minutes.

1994, Gene Perret, Successful Stand-up Comedy: Advice from a Comedy Writer, page 80:

If you're gigging outdoors for the Society of Catholic Gardeners, don't close your set with your "Papa Beelzebub" chunk (no matter how life affirming you think it is!).

2012, Jay Sankey, Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy, page 168:

(comedy) A segment of a comedian's performance.


dresser

From Middle English dresser, equivalent to dress + -er.

(theater, film, television) A wardrobe assistant (who helps actors put on their costume).


canonical

en-adj

canonical (comparative more canonical, superlative most canonical)

more canonical (comparative)
most canonical (superlative)

From Middle English canonycal, from Medieval Latin canōnicālis. By surface analysis, canon + -ical.

(mathematics, computing) In canonical form.


canonical

Google advises canonicals as one of the preferred methods of treating duplicate content in your CMS.

2015, Simon Kloostra, Joomla! 3 SEO and Performance, page 63:

(Internet) A URL presented in canonical form.


catastrophe

en-noun

catastrophe (countable and uncountable, plural catastrophes)

catastrophes (plural)
catastrophë (alternative)

From Ancient Greek καταστροφή (katastrophḗ), from καταστρέφω (katastréphō, “I overturn”), from κατά (katá, “down, against”) + στρέφω (stréphō, “I turn”).

Pat : he comes like the Cataſtrophe of the old Comedie : my Cue is villanous Melancholly, with a ſighe like Tom o’ Bedlam.

c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 286, column 2:

(narratology) The dramatic event that initiates the resolution of the plot; the dénouement.

catàstrofe

Ancient Greek tragedies: the solution of the plot


sitcom

sitcoms (plural)
sit-com (alternative)
sit com (alternative)

كُومِيدِيَا اَلْمَوْقِف

situation comedy — see also situation comedy


limerick

From the Irish town name Limerick, Irish Luimneach [ˈl̪ˠɪmʲənʲəx].

The limerick, it would appear,
Is a verse form we owe Edward Lear;
Two long and two short
Lines rhymed, as was taught,
And a fifth just to bring up the rear.

Description of the limerick in limerick form

Take a look. That’s Buffy, Muffy, and Fluffy.
Do they have anything in common other than names you could write a limerick around?

2006 May 24, Rhonda Smiley, “Sis-KaBOOM-Bah!”, in Totally Spies!: Undercover, season 4, episode 15, spoken by Jerry Lewis and Samantha “Sam” (Adrian Truss and Jennifer Hale), Marathon Media, via Teletoon:

A humorous, often bawdy verse of five anapaestic lines, with the rhyme scheme aabba, and typically having an 8–8–5–5–8 cadence.


pantomime

pantomime (countable and uncountable, plural pantomimes)

Circa 17th century, from Latin pantomīmus, from Ancient Greek παντόμιμος (pantómimos), from πᾶς (pâs, “each, all”) + μιμέομαι (miméomai, “I mimic”).

With the Stoke supporters jeering Ziv's every subsequent touch, the pantomime atmosphere created by the home crowd reached a crescendo when Ziv was shown a straight red shortly after the break in extraordinary circumstances.

2011 October 20, Michael da Silva, “Stoke 3 - 0 Macc Tel-Aviv”, in BBC Sport:

(UK) A traditional theatrical entertainment, originally based on the commedia dell'arte, but later aimed mostly at children and involving physical comedy, topical jokes, call and response, and fairy-tale plots.

Pantomime

traditional theatrical entertainment, mostly for children


gallows humor

1931, "German Falstaff" (review of The Mirror of Fools by Alfred Neumann), Time, 16 Jan.,
Author Neumann defiantly admits why he wrote this historical-romantic farce: "Because I wanted to fight against the general and my personal depression, and because in hard and bad times there is always one tragicomic feeling in place—gallows humor."

The term was part of the language before Freud wrote an essay on it -- 'gallows humour.' This is middle European humour, a response to hopeless situations. It's what a man says faced with a perfectly hopeless situation and he still manages to say something funny. Freud gives examples: A man being led out to be hanged at dawn says, 'Well, the day is certainly starting well.' It's generally called Jewish humour in this country. Actually it's humour from the peasants' revolt, the thirty years' war, and from the Napoleonic wars. It's small people being pushed this way and that way, enormous armies and plagues and so forth, and still hanging on in the face of hopelessness. Jewish jokes are middle European jokes. And the black humourists are gallows humourists, as they try to be funny in the face of situations which they see as just horrible.

1971, Kurt Vonnegut, “Running Experiments Off: An Interview”, in Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut:

True enough, there are such things as laughless jokes, what Freud called gallows humor. . . . While we were being bombed in Dresden, sitting in a cellar with our arms over our heads in case the ceiling fell, one soldier said as though he were duchess in a mansion on a cold and rainy night, "I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight."

2005, Kurt Vonnegut, A Man without a Country, →ISBN, page 5:

Mattis, it turned out, was meeting with Trudeau at NATO headquarters. Already engaging in gallows humor, I wondered if Mattis was defecting.

2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened, →ISBN, page 142:

(American spelling, idiomatic) A form of comedy that still manages to be humorous in the face of, and in response to, a tragic or hopeless situation.

絞架幽默 /绞架幽默

comedy that still manages to be funny in the face of a perfectly hopeless situation


black humor

Black humor is like food. Not everyone gets it.

A subgenre of comedy and satire that deals with subjects that are believed to be serious or controversial, such as death, divorce, drug abuse, etc.


tragedy

tragedy (countable and uncountable, plural tragedies)

tragedies (plural)
tragœdy (alternative)
tragoedy (alternative)
tragœdie (alternative)
tragoedie (alternative)
tragedie (alternative)

/ˈtɹæd͡ʒɛdi/

/ˈtɹæd͡ʒɪdi/

From the Middle English tragedie, from the Old French tragedie, from the Latin tragoedia, from the Ancient Greek τραγῳδία (tragōidía, “epic play, tragedy”), from τράγος (trágos, “male goat”) + ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”), a reference to the goat-satyrs of the theatrical plays of the Dorians.

der

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.

The genre of such works, and the art of producing them.

tragjedi

“The story of this adoption is, of course, the pivot round which all the circumstances of the mysterious tragedy revolved. Mrs. Yule had an only son, namely, William, to whom she was passionately attached ; but, like many a fond mother, she had the desire of mapping out that son's future entirely according to her own ideas.[…]”

1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tragedy in Dartmoor Terrace”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

After the terrible tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911, which killed 146 New York garment workers, proper fire drilling was considered a necessity.

2015, Alison Matthews David, Fashion Victims: The Damages of Dress Past and Present, →ISBN, page 142:

A disastrous event, especially one involving great loss of life or injury.


satire

en-noun

satire (countable and uncountable, plural satires)

From Middle French satire, from Old French, from Latin satira, from earlier satura, from lanx satura (“full dish”), from feminine of satur. Altered in Latin by influence of Ancient Greek σάτυρος (sáturos, “satyr”), on the mistaken notion that the form is related to the Greek σατυρικόν δράμα (saturikón dráma, “satyr drama”).

Satire deflates and debases. It is an art which topples greatness, undermines pretension and punishes pride by revealing the low in the pretendedly high, the filth in the pure, the folly in reason. This belittling trick deploys telescopic lenses which picture the human as lesser and lower, or as a machine or beast, driven by depraved desires. Satire reduces what purports to be subtly superior to a repertoire of stigmatizing symbols and cardboard cut-outs, turning character into caricature, signalled by exaggerated physiognomical distortions - the huge nose, gaping mouth and bloated belly, or comparable animalistic traits. In this humbling of the complex into the simplistic, satire finally reduces the mind, soul or spirit to that flesh which always bespeaks inferiority on the Chain of Being.

2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Ch.9, at p.148

(uncountable) A literary device of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change or highlighting a shortcoming in the work of another. Imitation, humor, irony, and exaggeration are often used to aid this.


diegesis

Ancient Greek διήγησις (diḗgēsis, “narration”), from διηγέομαι (diēgéomai, “I narrate”)

uder

A novel like Sterne′s Tristram Shandy, however, simply embeds a number of different diegeses on the play-within-a-play model.

1985, Bill Nichols, Movies and Methods: An Anthology, page 504:

The standard distinction between mimesis and diegesis is usually referred to as that between showing and telling, between iconic and indexical signs on the one hand and symbolic signs on the other, between drama and recitation.

1991, Christopher Collins, The Poetics of the Mind's Eye: Literature and the Psychology of Imagination, page 4:

Extradiegetic music is a matter of pure convention. It constitutes an exception within Hollywood classical cinema, in which everything is to belong to diegesis in order to elaborate a fictive, realistic universe.

2004, Sarah Hatchuel, Shakespeare: From Stage to Screen, page 89:

(narratology) A narration or recitation.


ethos

la-noun

ēthos n (genitive ētheos); irregular, third declension

ēthos (canonical neuter)
ētheos (genitive)
ēthos (nominative singular)
ēthea (nominative plural)
ēthē (nominative plural)
ētheos (genitive singular)
ēthōn (genitive plural)
ēthī (dative singular)
ēthesi (dative plural)
ēthesin (dative plural)
ēthos (accusative singular)
ēthea (accusative plural)
ēthē (accusative plural)
ēthī (ablative singular)
ēthesi (ablative plural)
ēthesin (ablative plural)
ēthos (singular vocative)
ēthea (plural vocative)
ēthē (plural vocative)

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἦθος (êthos).

Is omnium prīmus animum pīnxit et sēnsūs hominis expressit, quae vocant Graecī ēthē, item perturbātiōnēs, dūrior paulō in colōribus.

77 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia 35.98

He [viz. Aristides of Thebes] was the first of all painters who depicted the mind and expressed the feelings of a human being, what the Greeks term ethe, and also the emotions; he was a little too hard in his colours.


histrionic

en-adj

histrionic (comparative more histrionic, superlative most histrionic)

more histrionic (comparative)
most histrionic (superlative)
histrionick (alternative)

Borrowed from Late Latin histriōnicus (“pertaining to acting; scurrilous, shameful; wretched”), from Latin histriōnicus (“pertaining to acting and the theatre”), from histriō (“actor, player”) + -icus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’). By surface analysis, histrion + -ic.

der

After three years of constant applause, Miss [Elizabeth] O'Neill directed her steps towards the summit of histrionick exertion, being engaged for the season of 1814 at Covent Garden, where she made her first entrée as Juliet, on the 6th of October, being at once recognised as the first Hibernian actress, who had joined transcendant beauty with rare histrionick talent, since the time of Mrs. [Peg] Woffington.

1816 July, “Miss O’Neill. [From an English magazine.]”, in The North American Review and Miscellaneous Journal, volume III, number VIII, Boston, Mass.: Wells and Lilly […], →OCLC, page 164:

On Saturday, Miss F. H. Kelly played Belvidera for the first time, to a crowded House, and for her own benefit;—for her own benefit in every way, for the performance added a wreath to her histrionic laurels, and drew down the warmest testimonies of applause.

1823 June 14, “The Drama, etc.”, in The Literary Gazette; and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c., number 334, London: Printed by B. Bensley, […]; published for the proprietors, at the Literary Gazette office, […], →OCLC, page 381, column 3:

[T]hey might have been figures rehearsing some play of which she herself was the author; they might even, for the happy appearance they continued to present, have been such figures as would by the strong note of character in each fill any author with the certitude of success, especially of their own histrionic.

[…] Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.

1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, →OCLC; republished in The Old Man in the Corner: Twelve Mysteries, Kelly Bray, Cornwall: House of Stratus, 2008, →ISBN, →OL, chapter 2, page 207:

[F]oppiſh airs / And hiſtrionic mumm'ry, that let down / The pulpit to the level of the ſtage, / Drops from the lips a diſregarded thing.

1785, William Cowper, “Book II. The Time-piece.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, page 74:

[T]he mode and the expression of honour to literature in France has continued to this hour tainted with false and histrionic feeling, because originally it grew up from spurious roots, prospered unnaturally upon deep abuses in the system, and at this day (so far as it still lingers) memorialises the political bondage of the nation.

1848 May–August, [Thomas De Quincey], “Art VI.—The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith. A Biography. In Four Books. By John Forster. London, 1848. [book review]”, in The North British Review, volume IX, Edinburgh: W. P. Kennedy, […]; London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co.; Dublin: James M‘Glashan, →OCLC, page 208:

[Leon] Trotsky's vanity, unlike [Joseph] Stalin's, was, practically speaking, frivolous. There was something more histrionic about it. He had shown himself no less ruthless than Stalin. Indeed, at the time of the Civil War, he had ordered executions on a greater scale than Stalin or anyone else.

1990, Robert Conquest, “The Foreign Element”, in The Great Terror: A Reassessment, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN; 40th anniversary edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, →ISBN, book II (The Yezhov Years), page 414:

In the dance, the obsessive-compulsive keeps his mate endlessly frustrated. She, in turn, becomes more histrionic, and as she projects her emotional dirty part into him, he becomes more anal and compulsive.

2008, Joan Lachkar, “The Obsessive-Compulsive Narcissist”, in How to Talk to a Narcissist, New York, N.Y., Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 72:

This lens (known as a carello ottico in Italian and a travelling optique in French) is used sparingly but effectively in General Della Rovere during the important bombardment scene inside the prison, which introduces [Vittorio] De Sica's most histrionic speech.

2009, Peter Bondanella, “Neorealism’s Legacy to a New Generation, and the Italian Political Film”, in A History of Italian Cinema, New York, N.Y.: Continuum International Publishing Group, →ISBN, part 3 (The Golden Age of Italian Cinema), pages 219–220:

A vicious circle may form in which the more rejected they feel the more histrionic they become, and the more histrionic they become the more rejected they feel.

2010, Neel Burton, “Personality Disorders”, in Psychiatry, 2nd edition, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, →ISBN, part 2, page 138, column 2:

(by extension) Excessively dramatic or emotional, especially with the intention to draw attention.


catharsis

en-noun

catharsis (countable and uncountable, plural catharses)

/kəˈθɑɹˌsɪs/

From Ancient Greek κάθαρσις (kátharsis, “cleansing, purging”), from καθαίρω (kathaírō, “I cleanse”). Coined in the dramatic-emotional sense by Aristotle.

uder

True, as the show has entered its later years, there have been more inspired moments of catharsis, but fewer unpredictable arcs and story beats, as a narrative nearing its conclusion is no longer attempting to shock.

2019 April 14, Alex McLevy, “Winter is Here on Game of Thrones’ Final Season Premiere (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2020-12-18:

(drama) A release of emotional tension after an overwhelming vicarious experience, resulting in the purging or purification of the emotions, as through watching a dramatic production (especially a tragedy).


catharsis

Borrowed from Ancient Greek κάθαρσις (kátharsis).


comedy

en-noun

comedy (countable and uncountable, plural comedies)

comedies (plural)
comedie (alternative)
comœdie (alternative)
comœdy (alternative)

drama

antonym(s) of “light, humorous, or satirical work”

→ Japanese: コメディ (komedi)

→ Korean: 코미디 (komidi)

From Middle English comedie, from Middle French comedie, from Latin cōmoedia, from Ancient Greek κωμῳδία (kōmōidía), from κῶμος (kômos, “revel, carousing”) + either ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”) or ἀοιδός (aoidós, “singer, bard”), both from ἀείδω (aeídō, “I sing”). Doublet of commedia.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is among Shakespeare's most famous comedies.

(countable) a light, amusing play with a happy ending

комедия

(countable, drama) a dramatic work that is light and humorous or satirical in tone


climax

climax (countable and uncountable, plural climaxes or (rare) climaces)

climaxes (plural)
climaces (plural rare)

From Latin clīmax, from Ancient Greek κλῖμαξ (klîmax, “ladder, staircase, [rhetorical] climax”), from κλίνω (klínō, “I lean, slant”).

bor

As a trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations, I had outlined the Dresden story many times.

1969 March 31, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., chapter 1, in Slaughterhouse-Five […] (A Seymour Lawrence Book), New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →OCLC, page 4:

(narratology) The culmination of a narrative's rising action, the turning point.

кулминация

turning point in a plot or dramatic action


orchestra

la-noun

orchēstra f (genitive orchēstrae); first declension

orchēstra (canonical feminine)
orchēstrae (genitive)
orchēstra (nominative singular)
orchēstrae (nominative plural)
orchēstrae (genitive singular)
orchēstrārum (genitive plural)
orchēstrae (dative singular)
orchēstrīs (dative plural)
orchēstram (accusative singular)
orchēstrās (accusative plural)
orchēstrā (ablative singular)
orchēstrīs (ablative plural)
orchēstra (singular vocative)
orchēstrae (plural vocative)

→ Catalan: orquestra

→ English: orchestra (see there for further descendants)

→ Finnish: orkestra

→ French: orchestre (see there for further descendants)

→ Galician: orquestra

→ Indonesian: orkestra

desctree

→ Italian: orchestra
→ Turkish: orkestra

→ Latvian: orķestris

→ Malay: orkestra

→ Maltese: orkestra

→ Norman: orchestre

→ Piedmontese: orchestra

→ Polish: orkiestra

→ Portuguese: orquestra

→ Romanian: orchestră

→ Spanish: orquesta

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ὀρχήστρα (orkhḗstra).


praxis

en-noun

praxis (countable and uncountable, plural praxes or praxises)

Partly from Latin prāxis and partly from its etymon Ancient Greek πρᾶξις (prâxis, “action, activity, practice”).

bor

(drama) The deliberate action of a rational being.

ihmistoiminta

drama: deliberate action of a rational being


points

In my concentrated week at Stratford I found that, although as a theatregoer for decades I could not help marking what the old actors called 'points' now and again, […]

1977, Drama: The quarterly theatre review, numbers 124-131, page 16:

The nineteenth century acting technique of making points was encouraged by the dramaturgy of the melodramas which dominated the stage. The style was in fact difficult to avoid in many popular plays.

2014, Amy Lehman, Victorian Women and the Theatre of Trance, page 21:

(theater) Exaggerated speech or gestures used for emphasis during a performance.


lines

I have yet to learn my lines.

(film, theater) Words spoken by the actors.


lantern

lanterns (plural)
lanthorn (alternative)

→ Bengali: লন্ঠন (lonṭhon)

Hindi: लालटेन (lālṭen)

→ Irish: laindéar

→ Malay: lentera

Indonesian: lentera

→ Telugu: లాంతరు (lāntaru)

From Middle English lanterne (13th century), via Old French lanterne from Latin lanterna (“lantern”), itself a corruption of Ancient Greek λαμπτήρ (lamptḗr, “torch”) (see lamp, λάμπω (lámpō)) by influence of Latin lucerna (“lamp”). The spelling lanthorn was current during the 16th to 19th centuries and originates with a folk etymology associating the word with the use of horn as translucent cover. For the verb, compare French lanterner to hang at the lamppost. Displaced native Old English lēohtfæt (literally “light-container”).

ncog

(theater) Especially, a metal casing with lens used to illuminate a stage (e.g. spotlight, floodlight).


spoof

en-noun

spoof (countable and uncountable, plural spoofs)

Coined by the English comedian Arthur Roberts (1852–1933) in 1884 as the name of a card game involving deception and nonsense.

On Broadway, where it opened in 1949, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was a spoof of the madcap Twenties which gave Carol Channing her first starring role; on the screen, it was an up-to-date spoof of sex which gave Marilyn Monroe her first starring role in a musical.

1999 August, Stanley Green, Elaine Schmidt, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, in Hollywood Musicals Year by Year, 2nd edition, Milwaukee, Wis.: Hal Leonard Corporation, →ISBN, page 177:

The final piece of the country puzzle is found at the corner of Brisbane Street and Kable Avenue, where the Hands of Fame cornerstone bears the palm-prints of more country greats. A glorious spoof, the Noses of Fame memorial, can be savoured over a beer at the Tattersalls Hotel on Peel Street.

2003, Margo Daly, Anne Dehne, David Leffman, Chris Scott, “New South Wales and ACT”, in The Rough Guide to Australia, 6th edition, New York, N.Y., London: Rough Guides, →ISBN, pages 330–331:


tormentor

tormentors (plural)
tormentour (alternative)

From Anglo-Norman tourmentour, from Old French tormenteor.

Then Nathan Eldred, gently pushing, was muttering, ‘On you go, dear. Good luck!’ and she was edging between the tormentor and the backing flats, in front of the curtain, holding her small hands out to the sudden-silenced audience […]

1940, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 24, in Bethel Merriday, London: Jonathan Cape, page 241:

(theater) One of a pair of narrow curtains just behind the front curtain and teaser that mask the areas on the sides of the stage and can be adjusted to the desired width.


Shakespeare

Shakespeare (William Shakespeare, English playwright)


open sesame

open sesames (plural)
open, Sesame (alternative)
open, sesame (alternative)
open Sesame (alternative)

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Antoine Galland
One Thousand and One Nights

From its use in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, translating French Sésame, ouvre-toi in Antoine Galland's version of the Ali Baba story in the One Thousand and One Nights, possibly based on an oral Arabic source.
Not, as some have purported, a corruption of Open, says me!.

"The blue topaz was bought by me, from the chieftain of the tribe to which Quacal belongs. It is an ‘open sesame’ to his favor."

1899, William Wallace Cook, “Aquastor”, in Overland Monthly, page 15:

He who can read a true book aright has an open sesame to audiences with the great and wise of all time.

1905, John Ruskin, The Works of John Ruskin, page lv:

Relevancy not always an open sesame having in mind the over-all authority and discretion of the trial judge.

1963, William J. Palmer, Trial Tactics in California, page 57:

When Mussolini was a young chap, he dabbled with socialism, imagining it to be an open sesame to a better society.

2001 September 24, Gareth McLean, “Sympathy for a devil”, in The Guardian:

Any successful means of achieving a result, especially means that are magical or technical, or otherwise beyond the understanding of most people.