a. and sb. Also 4 comice, 6 commick(e, 6–7 comi(c)que, 6–8 comick. [ad. L. cōmic-us, a. Gr. κωμικ-ός of or pertaining to comedy (= κωμῳδικός), as sb. comic poet or actor, prob. f. κῶμος merry-making, revel: see COMEDY. Cf. F. comique (adj. and sb.).]
A. adj.
1. Of, proper, or belonging to comedy, in the dramatic sense, as distinguished from tragedy.
Comic poet, a writer of comedies. Comic opera, an opera whose subject is of the nature of a comedy, and in which a large part of the dialogue is spoken; but now often applied to a mere burlesque set to music. The sense in quot. 1387 is obscure.
[1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), V. 321. Boethius … made fifty songes endited comice [cantus comicos edidit] þat is as it were schort vers.]
1576. N. R., Commend. Verses, in Gascoigne’s Steele Gl. (Arb.), 46. For commicke verse still Plautus peerelesse was.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, I. xi. (Arb.), 41. Besides those Poets Comick there were other who served also the stage … called Poets Tragicall.
1602. Return fr. Parnass., V. iv. (Arb.), 72. Who kennes the lawes of euery comick stage.
1742. Fielding, Jos. Andrews, Pref. No two species of writing can differ more widely than the comic and the burlesque.
1746. Collins, Odes, Manners, 55. The comick sock that binds thy feet.
1762. Sterne, Lett. to Garrick, 19 March. The whole city of Paris is bewitch’d with the comic opera.
1841. Macaulay, Comic Dramatists. The Puritan had affected formality: the comic poet laughed at decorum.
1878. J. Hullah, in Grove, Dict. Mus., I. 380. Comic opera is the opera of comedy, not ‘comic’ in the vulgar English sense.
2. Aiming at a humorous or ridiculous effect: applied to literary compositions, songs, journals, etc., which have it as their express aim to excite mirth; burlesque, funny.
A modern downward extension of the notion, to which the first quot. is only transitional.
[1711. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), III. 253. Cervantes … that comick author.]
1839. (title) Comic Latin Grammar.
1852. Dickens, Bleak Ho., xi. Little Swills, the Comic Vocalist.
1883. Lloyd, Ebb & Flow, II. 6. The bookstall where the comic papers were.
1884. Miss Braddon, Ishmael, xiv. A sentimental duet about the stars and the sea was followed by a comic duet about a matrimonial quarrel.
3. Said of actions, incidents, etc.: = COMICAL 4.
a. Calculated to excite mirth; intentionally funny.
1792. Boswell, Johnson, 6 April, an. 1775. Moody interjected, in an Irish tone, and with a comic look, ‘Ah! poor George the Second.’
1879. E. Garrett, House by Works, II. 7. Will was … full of cheerfulness and fun during his wife’s visits to the hospital, indulging only in comic murmurs.
b. Unintentionally provocative of mirth; laughable, ludicrous.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 176, ¶ 2. Among the principal of comick calamities, may be reckoned the pain which an author … feels at the onset of a furious critick.
1833. Sir F. B. Head, Bubbles fr. Brunnen, iii. His attempt in such deep affliction to be musical is comic in the extreme.
1847. Tennyson, Princ., Concl. 67. Revolts, republics, revolutions,… Too comic for the solemn things they are, Too solemn for the comic touches in them.
1873. ‘Mrs. Alexander,’ Wooing o’t, v. Finding something irresistibly comic in the widow’s woes.
B. sb.
† 1. a. A comic writer; = COMEDIAN 2. Obs.
1581. Lambarde, Eiren., II. vii. (1588), 257. Ita fugias, ne præter casam, as the Comicque sayd.
1658. W. Burton, Itin. Anton., 50. Of this Menander the Comick in these two Senaries.
1738. Warburton, Wks. (1811), I. 151. I would say, with the old comic, Utinam, etc.
† b. A comic actor; = COMEDIAN 1. Obs.
1619. H. Hutton, Follies Anat., 9. Acting a comicks part upon the stage.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 22, ¶ 5. Cave Underhill, who has been a Comick for Three Generations.
2. colloq. Short for comic paper. Cf. daily.
1889. Catholic Household, 1 June, 7/3. The joke from one of the comics, to which you object, was quite harmless.
3. quasi-sb. The comic: that which is comic; the comic side of the drama, of life, etc.
1842. Lytton, Zanoni, I. ii. Others insist upon it that her forte is the comic.
1858. De Quincey, Th. Grk. Trag., Wks. (1862), IX. 54. The ultimate resource, the well-head of the comic, must for ever be sought in one and the same field.
C. Comb., as † comic-serious, -tragical (= comico-serious, -tragical).
1610. Donne, Pseudo-Martyr, 108. This Comique Tragicall Doctrine of Purgatory.
1790. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary (1842–6), V. 166. His comic-serious face and manner.
