From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmelodramamel‧o‧dra‧ma /ˈmelədrɑːmə $ -drɑːmə, -dræmə/ noun [countable, uncountable] 1 STORYa story or play in which very exciting or terrible things happen, and in which the characters and the emotions they show seem too strong to be real He was behaving like a character in a Victorian melodrama.2 EMOTIONALa situation in which people become more angry or upset than is really necessary Come on, there’s no need for all this melodrama.
Examples from the Corpus
melodrama• Why does she have to turn everything into a melodrama?• In many respects Griffith was a conventional story-teller and melodrama was always really the framework of his themes.• This has been a constant melodrama.• Some of the description is superb, but the climbing remains unconvincing, slipping too easily into melodrama and strange terminology.• Recounted with even a trace of melodrama, this story would read like a soap opera.• In theory, a star-driven period melodrama with top-notch production values should have been an attractive proposition for distributors.• Few events this century have rivaled the sinking of the Titanic for sheer melodrama.• This was Abba's tour de force, a brilliantly structured melodrama which put Faltskog's fragile, emotional vocal centre stage.• Hale met in the hogan with committee members and talked for more than three hours about the melodrama.Origin melodrama (1800-1900) French mélodrame, from Greek melos ( → MELODY) + French drame “drama” 