Origin Story
Hidden inside tragedy, surprisingly, is a "goat." In Greek, tragos means "goat" and oide means "song," and together they form tragoidia, "goat song." In ancient Greece, festivals honoring Dionysus, god of wine and abundance, featured rites in which a chorus sang and danced. There are several theories about the name: that the performers wore goatskins to imitate the satyrs, the god's attendants, or that a goat was given as the prize in the song contest. Either way, this "goat song" gradually developed into serious drama and became what we now call tragedy.
Another word born of the same festival is comedy. It joins Greek komos ("revel, festive procession") with oide ("song") to mean "song of revelry." Both tragedy and comedy, then, began as songs sung at the festival of Dionysus.
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Online Etymology Dictionarytragedy (n.): late 14c., from Old French tragedie, from Latin tragoedia, from Greek tragoidia "a dramatic poem or play in formal language with an unhappy resolution," apparently literally "goat song," from tragos "goat" + oide "song"
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Merriam-Webster Dictionarytragedy: from Greek tragoidia, from tragos goat + aeidein to sing
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Oxford English Dictionarytragedy: from Greek tragoidia, apparently from tragos "goat" + oide "song"; the reason for the name is disputed
Word Evolution
Words from the Same Root
Memory Hook
Remember tragedy = tragos ("goat") + oide ("song") — the "goat song" of the festival of Dionysus.
""It is a striking accident that the name for the saddest of dramas was once a goat song.""
