▪ I. melodrame, n. Now rare or Obs.
(ˈmɛləʊdræm)
Also melodram.
[a. F. mélodrame (1781 in Hatz.-Darm.), f. Gr. µέλο-ς song, music + F. drame drama. Cf. Sp. melodrama, It. melodramma, G. melodram (from Fr.).]
1. = melodrama 1, 1 b.
| 1802 Sk. Paris II. lxx. 390 Melo drames and pieces connected with pantomime. 1803 in Spirit Pub. Jrnls. (1804) VII. 68 The Melo-drame, which was performed..upon the re-opening of this [the National] Theatre. 1814 New Brit. Theat. III. 255 (Remarks on ‘The Spaniards; an Heroic Drama’) Had it [this piece] been condensed into three acts, and called a melo-dram, it might have, even in the opinion of the managers, served the interests of their concern [etc.]. 1815 Helen M. Williams Narr. Events France xii. 254 Strangers seem to arrive in France, as they would go to a melo-drame, prepared for extraordinary events. 1818 Lady Morgan Autobiog. (1859) 212 Shakspeare is supreme in melodrame, and he is its founder; and the melo⁓drame of Macbeth is finer than any modern exhibition which has followed it. 1825 Gentl. Mag. XCV. i. 362 The scenery, as usual in melo-drames, was very beautiful. 1835 J. P. Kennedy Horse Shoe R. xxxiii. (1860) 372 It [the bugle] was displayed as ostentatiously as if worn by the hero of a melodrame. 1841 Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) VI. 186 Might not there be hope for the ministry, if it were to..send its adherents to make progresses by threes and fours throughout the country, to ‘solemn music’ as the melo⁓drames have it. |
2. transf. = melodrama 2.
| 1817 Lady Morgan France (1818) II. 346 To perform a subordinate part in this splendid melo-drame of the elements. 1822 Byron Vis. Judgm. x, The torches, cloaks, and banners..Form'd a sepulchral melodrame. 1842 J. Sterling Ess., etc. (1848) I. 430 The ostentatious emptiness of the charitable melodrame. 1845 Q. Rev. LXXV. 234 All this melodram of Mullaghmast was but a prelude to a design of unmixed gravity. |
▪ II. † ˈmelodrame, v. Obs. rare—1.
[f. the n.]
= melodramatize v.
| 1836 New Monthly Mag. XLVII. 235 We have seldom read a novel more suited to be melodramed. |