Translation
tragedy (the play, and the disaster)
Word origin
From Greek tragoidia, which is tragos ('goat') plus oide ('song'). A goat-song. Nobody is certain why: the goat may have been the prize for the winning chorus at the Athenian festivals, or the chorus may have dressed as goat-men for the rites of Dionysus, or a goat may simply have been sacrificed before the performance. Every account agrees on the goat and none of them can prove the rest.
- Origin
- Greek
- Root
- tragos + oide
- English cognates
- tragedy, tragic, ode, melody
Examples
.
The actors performed a tragedy in the old theatre.
.
The war was a tragedy for the whole people.
, .
Nobody understood why the tragedy happened.
The etymology is the whole reason to like this word. is, letter by letter, a goat-song, and once you know that you will never lose the spelling. The -edi- in the middle is the Greek oide, a song, which is also sitting inside ode, melody, parody and rhapsody. The trag- is a goat, and it is the same goat as in tragopan and, at a stretch, in the constellation Capricorn's Greek relatives.
Do not try to build the word out of Esperanto parts. There is no -edi- suffix and trag- is not a root here; - is one borrowed unit, as is another. The two came into every European language together and into Esperanto the same way.
Both English senses carry over. A is a play with a bad ending and also an event with a bad ending, and Esperanto uses the word for both without apology. Tragedia is the adjective; also exists and is the commoner choice when you mean the quality rather than the genre, so a plot is tragedia and a piece of news is .
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tragedio: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "tragedio" (tragedy (the play, and the disaster)): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 40.