rare. [formed on the model of tragi-comedy.] A tragedy containing an element of comedy.
1760. J. C. Pilkington, Real Story of J. C. P., 140. This, said the Baron, is a comi-tragedy, and would have made a good story, but for the catastrophe.
1823. D’Israeli, Cur. Liter., Ser. II. III. 437. Their last public appearance was in the fleeting days of Richard Cromwell, when the comi-tragedy of ‘the Rump’ concluded by a catastrophe as ludicrous as that of Tom Thumb’s tragedy!
1864. Kingsley, Rom. & Teut., 22. A passage in which he transfers the whole comitragedy from Italy of old to England in 1861.
1884. Athenæum, 7 June, 723/3. The reflective Elizabethans saw … that, without Fate, drama, even in its very highest and intensest mood, is but comi-tragedy.
