HISTRIONIC • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Histrionic

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/hˌɪstriˈɑnɪk/ Listen

adjective

Histrionical, Histrionic adj.

Of or relating to the stage or a stageplayer; befitting a theatre; theatrical.

Affectedly dramatic; insincerely emotional; sometimes used in a bad sense. "Tainted with false and histrionic feeling."

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Etymology of 'Histrionic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Histrionic" Quotes from Famous Books

... Charles; she had played it with Henry of Anjou; she had already played it with Alencon once; yet every time she started it afresh, potentates and ambassadors, her own ministers, and the wooer she selected, took the thing seriously, played into her hands, and were cajoled by her boundless histrionic ingenuity. Either she treated the world to a series of successful impositions, carried through, unaided and unsuspected, with the supreme audacity and skill of a consummate comedienne; or she was a contemptibly capricious woman whose inordinate vacillations ...

— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... curiosity had been deeply excited by what I had heard of him. I was told that, after long years of patient toil and profound thought, his genius had discovered and developed a scientific basis for histrionic art, that he had substituted law for empiricism in the domain of the most potential of the fine arts; and when the names of Rachel and Macready were quoted in his list of pupils, I was eager to behold the master and to learn something ...

— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... chair, and he obediently read the check first, and then took up the letter. It was dated at Chicago, and was written with a certain histrionic consciousness, as if Godolphin enjoyed the pose of a rising young actor paying over to the author his share of the profits of their joint enterprise in their play. There was a list of the dates ...

— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... part of the year 1817. When there, he became personally acquainted with several members of the theatrical profession; amongst others, with Munden and Miss Kelly, for both of whom he entertained the highest admiration. One of the (Elia) Essays is written to celebrate Munden's histrionic talent; and in his letters he speaks of "Fanny Kelly's divine plain face." The Barbara S. of the second (or last) series of essays is, in fact, Miss Kelly herself. All his friends knew that he was greatly attached ...

— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... announced as the most desperate of buffos,—one who was obliged to restrain himself in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential considerations. I have been through as many hardships as Ulysses, in the pursuit of my histrionic vocation. I have travelled in cars until the conductors all knew me like a brother. I have run off the rails, and stuck all night in snow-drifts, and sat behind females that would have the window open when one could not wink without his eyelids freezing together. Perhaps I ...

— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

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