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THEATRICAL
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A performance of a play
Synonyms:
histrionics; representation; theatrical; theatrical performance
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("theatrical" is a kind of...):
performance; public presentation (a dramatic or musical entertainment)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "theatrical"):
matinee (a theatrical performance held during the daytime (especially in the afternoon))
Derivation:
theatrical (suited to or characteristic of the stage or theater)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Suited to or characteristic of the stage or theater
Example:
one of the most theatrical figures in public life
Classified under:
Similar:
histrionic; melodramatic (characteristic of acting or a stage performance; often affected)
showy (displaying brilliance and virtuosity)
stagey; stagy (having characteristics of the stage especially an artificial and mannered quality)
Antonym:
untheatrical (not suited to or characteristic of the stage or theater)
Derivation:
theater (the art of writing and producing plays)
theatrical (a performance of a play)
theatricality (an artificial and mannered quality)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Of or relating to the theater
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Pertainym:
theater (the art of writing and producing plays)
Derivation:
theater (the art of writing and producing plays)
theatricality (an artificial and mannered quality)
Context examples:
Mr. Yates's family and connexions were sufficiently known to him to render his introduction as the particular friend, another of the hundred particular friends of his son, exceedingly unwelcome; and it needed all the felicity of being again at home, and all the forbearance it could supply, to save Sir Thomas from anger on finding himself thus bewildered in his own house, making part of a ridiculous exhibition in the midst of theatrical nonsense, and forced in so untoward a moment to admit the acquaintance of a young man whom he felt sure of disapproving, and whose easy indifference and volubility in the course of the first five minutes seemed to mark him the most at home of the two.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Mr. Yates had staid to see the destruction of every theatrical preparation at Mansfield, the removal of everything appertaining to the play: he left the house in all the soberness of its general character; and Sir Thomas hoped, in seeing him out of it, to be rid of the worst object connected with the scheme, and the last that must be inevitably reminding him of its existence.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Edmund, between his theatrical and his real part, between Miss Crawford's claims and his own conduct, between love and consistency, was equally unobservant; and Mrs. Norris was too busy in contriving and directing the general little matters of the company, superintending their various dresses with economical expedient, for which nobody thanked her, and saving, with delighted integrity, half a crown here and there to the absent Sir Thomas, to have leisure for watching the behaviour, or guarding the happiness of his daughters.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Of theatrical people there were Gus Waize and Horace O'Donavan and Lester Meyer and George Duckweed and Francis Bull. Also from New York were the Chromes and the Backhyssons and the Dennickers and Russel Betty and the Corrigans and the Kellehers and the Dewars and the Scullys and S. W. Belcher and the Smirkes and the young Quinns, divorced now, and Henry L. Palmetto who killed himself by jumping in front of a subway train in Times Square.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
