soap opera
80
2.3
- noun
- /soʊp ˈɑːpərə/
:
telenovela
- My wife and I: love at first sight, just like the songs and soap operas.
- watch soap operas
- television soap operas
- popular soap operas
You know, I mean, this is all like soap opera, you know, material.
- You know, I mean, this is all like soap opera, you know, material.
- So what I need to play this game is quite simply, someone who is a soap opera fanatic.
- One was for the Doctors, a soap opera, and one was for Somerset, a soap opera.
- But that's what happens in an episode of a soap opera.
- But enough with the mind games, and finally, some good news for people who love soap operas.
- There's a little bit of intrigue, there's mystery, there's adventure, all the ingredients that make a really good soap opera.
- Doctors is a soap opera in Britain, and in each episode a doctor deals with, you know, someone having a crisis.
- The I I've just been working with the guy in Brazil, a a big soap opera star down there who wants to do a a serial for Netflix.
- He put, you know, he did, it's very funny and speak and the the audience loves him and he becomes a big soap opera star.
Examples
-
Becca was watching an afternoon soap opera she'd seen off and on since she was a kid.
Fiction book (2001) -
Plot twists drive all soap operas, and this one was no exception.
Academic text (1995) -
Love, loss, a kind of soap opera story.
-
Well, that was a soap opera moment.
-
Like my own little soap opera.
-
Doctors is a soap opera in Britain, and in each episode a doctor deals with, you know, someone having a crisis.
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I think my life is like a soap, soap opera, really.
-
All my mom did was sit around, watch soap operas, and drink milkshakes.
-
Since 1956, a Jamaican radio soap opera has always been on the airwaves.
Academic text (1992) -
Every afternoon, she enjoys watching her favorite soap opera that follows the dramatic lives of its characters.
Synonyms
131
1.0
A program you watch on TV in separate episodes
12
3.8
A TV drama from Latin America that tells one long romantic story in many episodes
A long TV drama with ongoing stories about relationships
A very emotional TV show or movie like a soap opera that often makes you cry
How Dramatic
Surface Forms
Morphology
soap + opera
The meaning 'television or radio melodrama series' is not transparently built from 'soap' (a cleaning product) and 'opera' (a staged musical drama); a B1 learner who only knows the constituents would not predict the modern sense. The term is historically idiomatic (originating from soap-company sponsorship) and functions as a lexicalized compound, so its meaning is unpredictable from the parts.
Etymology
Soap opera comes from early radio and TV dramas paid for by soap makers. Those shows were like small, emotional operas that ran every day, so the name stuck and now means a long, dramatic series about people's lives.