A “tragedy” is a goat song

Greek theater's most serious word translates, weirdly, to “goat song.” Nobody's totally sure why.

Tragedy comes from the Greek tragodia, and it breaks apart into two very ordinary words: tragos, "goat," and oide, "song." The most solemn word in drama literally means goat song.

The etymology of “tragedy”

The "goat song" translation is solid. The mystery is why anyone attached a goat to high drama, and the honest answer is that nobody knows for sure.

The leading guess ties it to the satyr plays of early Greek theater, where performers dressed in goatskins to play those half-goat woodland spirits. Another old theory is simpler and funnier: the prize for winning a drama contest may have been, literally, a goat. Either way the goat wandered in early and never left.

So the next time a story ends in ruin and heartbreak, you can call it what the Greeks did: a goat song.