seriocomic

adjective se·rio·com·ic \ ˌsir-ē-ō-ˈkä-mik \

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

Definition of seriocomic

: having a mixture of the serious and the comic

a seriocomic novel

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seriocomically

play \ˌsir-ē-ō-ˈkä-mi-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

seriocomic was our Word of the Day on 10/04/2012. Hear the podcast!

Recent Examples of seriocomic from the Web

Tragedy strikes on Oscar night, splitting the emotions of Best Supporting Actor nominee Michael Stratford (Brian Hutchison) in the world premiere of playwright Paul Rudnick’s seriocomic ensemble piece, Big Night.

— jordan riefe, The Hollywood Reporter, "'Big Night': Theater Review," 18 Sep. 2017
Blair had tried to get financing for the seriocomic thriller for about a year, but was unable to coax famous-enough actors to satisfy studios and investors.

— ann hornaday, The Denver Post, "Fewer indie films are opening in theaters, and filmmakers are fine with that," 25 Apr. 2017
Lighting and sound (designed by Jon Olson and Jason Ducat respectively) signal shifts from bitter to rueful, from seriocomic to sorrowful.

— lisa kennedy, The Know, "Review: Exquisite corpses tell all in “The Drowning Girls” at Arvada Center," 14 Apr. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'seriocomic.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

Seriocomic may have a modern ring to it, but our earliest evidence of the word in print is from 1783. Another "comic" word-heroicomic, meaning "comic by being ludicrously noble, bold, or elevated"-is slightly older; evidence of it dates to 1756. Both words are about a century younger than our third "comic" word, "tragicomic" ("manifesting both tragic and comic aspects"), which print evidence dates to 1683. (Evidence of the variant "tragicomical," however, dates all the way back to 1567.)