How to Use tragicomic in a Sentence

tragicomic

adjective
  • And Meat played the tragicomic biker’s love song to the hilt.
    — A.d. Amorosi, Variety, 21 Jan. 2022
  • The film is an acute, tragicomic reflection on the use and abuse of the mobile phone.
    — Patrick Frater, Variety, 5 Apr. 2023
  • Schnittke calls for the lights to slowly dim on this tragicomic ending.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Mar. 2022
  • The armpit event fires the starting gun of a long, frantic, sometimes tragicomic race.
    — Joan Frank, BostonGlobe.com, 11 May 2023
  • The near-miss irony of these coincidences lends the film a frantic, tragicomic verve.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 10 June 2022
  • King’s tweet-chronicle is a new techno-strain of this tragicomic black lyricism.
    — Namwali Serpell, The New York Review of Books, 6 July 2022
  • This tragicomic meditation on growing old is not to be missed.
    — Toby Zinman, Philly.com, 2 Apr. 2018
  • Dell, the narrator of this tragicomic novel, lives in a tiny apartment that used to be a walk-in closet.
    — The New Yorker, New Yorker, 26 Jan. 2026
  • Mildred is a small but pivotal role, one that sets the stage for Yank's tragicomic undoing.
    — Andrea Simakis, cleveland.com, 9 Dec. 2017
  • The film tells the tragicomic tale of how our greatest talents can become our greatest flaws, and how unpredictable our lives can be.
    — Leo Barraclough, Variety, 13 Oct. 2023
  • His tunnel vision is both an accouterment of power and a tragicomic flaw.
    — Los Angeles Times, 2 Dec. 2021
  • Voormann witnessed a tragicomic scene as John, dressed as a cleaning woman and knocking over mike stands, worked through his grief.
    — The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2022
  • Johnson builds her micro tragicomic set piece into the macro Good-and-Evil spacefight.
    — Darren Franich, EW.com, 16 Dec. 2019
  • There are more than forty paintings of this strange, tragicomic figure, eight of which are in the MoCA show.
    — Calvin Tomkins, The New Yorker, 16 Jan. 2023
  • Byrne the actor turns out to be stretchable in the best sense; her performance is a marvel of tragicomic elasticity.
    — Justin Chang, New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2025
  • Nor is the tragicomic irony, which requires distance for a gap to emerge—that between an intended and a literal meaning.
    — Eugenie Brinkema, ARTnews.com, 14 June 2026
  • The mind behind these tragicomic tales will speak Thursday at Politics and Prose.
    — Thomas Floyd, Washington Post, 12 June 2019
  • The beating tragicomic heart of Östlund’s wickedly funny class satire was also, hands-down, the supporting performer of the year.
    — Los Angeles Times, 2 Mar. 2023
  • Young, who is influenced by Langston Hughes’ tragicomic writing, weaves in bits of humor between the grief.
    — Jeremy Redmon, ajc, 27 Sep. 2021
  • There were a few tragicomic final scenes — a drunken occupier stood in a plaza, firing into the air, until he was confronted.
    — James Verini Paolo Pellegrin, New York Times, 1 Nov. 2023
  • The lack of returnees on Thursday followed the same tragicomic script as previous efforts to get the Rohingya home.
    — New York Times, 22 Aug. 2019
  • Trump went as its tragicomic reenactor, treating his audience to a performance that rhymed with many of the country’s darkest moments.
    — Brett Rosenberg, The New Republic, 22 Oct. 2020
  • Raja the Gullible is another tragicomic triumph.
    — Literary Hub, 8 Sep. 2025
  • Spotty Wi-Fi served up the tragicomic cavalcade of cabinet nominees in dribs and drabs.
    — Pilar Guzmán, Condé Nast Traveler, 17 Jan. 2017
  • Someone, at some point, must forgo quiet contemplation of man’s tragicomic fallenness, put down the pipe, and enter the fray.
    — Sam Adler-Bell, The New Republic, 3 Dec. 2021
  • Most of us watch films and shows about less-than-happy topics — war, heartbreak, loss, the tragicomic existence of life behind a desk in a faceless bureaucracy.
    — Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times, 11 June 2024
  • Hader, a passionate cinephile with a keen eye for tragicomic details and action choreography, directed the first two episodes of the new season.
    — NBC News, 21 Apr. 2022
  • Things feel different now, even in the few months since Lightfoot took over, and even with the tragicomic scandal of the Jussie Smollett affair.
    — Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 3 June 2019
  • The tragicomic look at two lives on hold struck a chord; its depiction of a family bickering and bantering, and of the risks of intimacy, felt specific and true.
    — Alex Barasch, New Yorker, 6 Apr. 2026
  • This year, the awards went tragicomic with The Banshees of Inisherin taking the most nominations.
    — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 12 Dec. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tragicomic.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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