Tragic — A Vocabulary Story
The Cracked Violin
In a small workshop in Kraków, Ekaterina pressed her ear against the door. Inside, her uncle Daniel was repairing violins for the spring concert, muttering about deadlines.
"Come in, don't lurk," he called.
She slipped inside. On the bench lay a violin with a long split down its belly, like a wound.
"Tragic, isn't it?" Daniel said. "This one belonged to a soloist in Vienna. She dropped it on cobblestones. A tragic accident, really, after thirty years of careful playing."
Tragic means causing or involving great suffering, distress, or sorrow.
Ekaterina touched the wood gently. "Can you fix it?"
"Most repairs aren't tragic, just fiddly. But this crack runs through the soundpost. That's the tragic bit."
She watched him clamp the halves and brush in hide glue, his hands steadier than the river outside the window. He told her about a luthier in Cremona whose entire workshop had burned in 1745, a properly tragic loss, and about a cellist in Buenos Aires who'd left her instrument on a tram.
"People think losing things is the tragic part," Daniel said, tightening a clamp. "But forgetting how to mend them, that would be tragic."
Ekaterina handed him a smaller clamp without being asked. By dusk the violin was bound like a patient in bandages, drying quietly. Daniel poured tea, and they sat listening to the wood settle, breath by breath.
Word Definition
tragic
meaning
causing or involving great suffering, distress, or sorrow
synonyms
disastrous · catastrophic · unfortunate · devastating · awful
antonyms
fortunate · joyful · rewarding
example sentence
The tragic accident claimed the lives of three young passengers.