histrionic — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Of or relating to actors or acting.

   Synonyms

   actorishactressydramatictheatrical

   Examples

   More examples (4)

   After three years of constant applause, Miss [Elizabeth] O'Neill directed her steps towards the summit of histrionick exertion, being engaged for the season of 1814 at Covent Garden, where she made her first entrée as Juliet, on the 6th of October, being at once recognised as the first Hibernian actress, who had joined transcendant beauty with rare histrionick talent, since the time of Mrs. [Peg] Woffington.

   On Saturday, Miss F. H. Kelly played Belvidera for the first time, to a crowded House, and for her own benefit;—for her own benefit in every way, for the performance added a wreath to her histrionic laurels, and drew down the warmest testimonies of applause.

   [T]hey might have been figures rehearsing some play of which she herself was the author; they might even, for the happy appearance they continued to present, have been such figures as would by the strong note of character in each fill any author with the certitude of success, especially of their own histrionic.

   […] Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.

2. Excessively dramatic or emotional, especially with the intention to draw attention.

   Usage

   • broadly

   Synonyms

   hammymelodramaticoverdramaticsensationalizedstagy

   Antonyms

   undramaticunderstatedstoic

   Examples

   [F]oppiſh airs / And hiſtrionic mumm'ry, that let down / The pulpit to the level of the ſtage, / Drops from the lips a diſregarded thing.

   More examples (5)

   [T]he mode and the expression of honour to literature in France has continued to this hour tainted with false and histrionic feeling, because originally it grew up from spurious roots, prospered unnaturally upon deep abuses in the system, and at this day (so far as it still lingers) memorialises the political bondage of the nation.

   […] Judah and Jacob-Israel are not simple eponymic counters in an etiological tale […] but are individual characters surrounded by multiple ironies, artfully etched in their imperfections as well as in their strengths. A historionic Jacob blinded by excessive love and perhaps loving the excess […]

   [Leon] Trotsky's vanity, unlike [Joseph] Stalin's, was, practically speaking, frivolous. There was something more histrionic about it. He had shown himself no less ruthless than Stalin. Indeed, at the time of the Civil War, he had ordered executions on a greater scale than Stalin or anyone else.

   In the dance, the obsessive-compulsive keeps his mate endlessly frustrated. She, in turn, becomes more histrionic, and as she projects her emotional dirty part into him, he becomes more anal and compulsive.

   This lens (known as a carello ottico in Italian and a travelling optique in French) is used sparingly but effectively in General Della Rovere during the important bombardment scene inside the prison, which introduces [Vittorio] De Sica's most histrionic speech.

   A vicious circle may form in which the more rejected they feel the more histrionic they become, and the more histrionic they become the more rejected they feel.

Adjective

1. characteristic of acting or a stage performance; often affected

   Synonyms

   melodramatic

   Examples

   histrionic gestures

   an attitude of melodramatic despair

   More examples (1)

   a theatrical pose