Dramatic

Pronunciation

Alternative forms

• dramatick

Origin

From Ancient Greek δραματικός, from δρᾶμα (drama, "drama, play"), from δράω (draō, "I do, accomplish").

Full definition of dramatic

Adjective

1. Of or relating to the drama.
• 1911, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Chapter S:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Music, Monteverde found the conditions of dramatic music more favourable to his experiments than those of choral music, in which both voices and ears are at their highest sensibility to discord.
2. Striking in appearance or effect.
• 1986, Ronald Reagan, S:Proclamation 5430, Each year remarkable advances in prenatal medicine bring ever more dramatic confirmation of what common sense told us all along-that the child in the womb is simply what each of us once was: a very young, very small, dependent, vulnerable member of the human family.
• 2013-08-17, Best and brightest, Poland has made some dramatic gains in education in the past decade. Before 2000 half of the country’s rural adults had finished only primary school. Yet international rankings now put the country’s students well ahead of America’s in science and maths (the strongest predictor of future earnings), even as the country spends far less per pupil.
3. Having a powerful, expressive singing voice.

Derived terms

• nondramatic