dramatic

• dramatick

From Ancient Greek δραματικός (dramatikós), from δρᾶμα (drâma, “drama, play”), from δράω (dráō, “I do, accomplish”). By surface analysis, drama +‎ -tic.

• IPA^(key): /dɹəˈmætɪk/

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dramatic (comparative more dramatic, superlative most dramatic)

1. Of or relating to the drama.
   • 1911, “Music”, in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:

     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, 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 August 17, “Best and brightest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8849:

     Poland has made some dramatic gains in education in the past decade.

   • 2025 March 13, Kaanita Iyer, “Johns Hopkins laying off more than 2,000 workers after dramatic cut in USAID funding”, in edition.cnn.com‎^[1]:

     Johns Hopkins laying off more than 2,000 workers after dramatic cut in USAID funding […] Daniels warned in the message that the dramatic cut in USAID funding will result in “impacts to budgets, personnel, and programs.”

3. Having a powerful, expressive singing voice.
4. (informal) Tending to exaggerate in order to get attention.

   You're not bleeding out; the knife barely scratched your skin. Stop being so dramatic!

• → Japanese: ドラマティック (doramatikku)

• "dramatic" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 109.

Borrowed from French dramatique, from Latin dramaticus. Equivalent to dramă +‎ -atic.

• IPA^(key): /draˈma.tik/

dramatic m or n (feminine singular dramatică, masculine plural dramatici, feminine and neuter plural dramatice)

1. dramatic

• “dramatic”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2025