comedy

comedy late 14c., from O.Fr. comedie (14c., "a poem," not in the theatrical sense), from L. comoedia, from Gk. komoidia "a comedy, amusing spectacle," from komodios "singer in the revels," from komos "revel, carousal" + oidos "singer, poet," from aeidein "to sing" (see ODE (Cf. ode)). The classical sense was "amusing play or performance," which is similar to the modern one, but in the Middle Ages the word came to mean poems and stories generally (albeit ones with happy endings), and the earliest English sense is "narrative poem" (Cf. Dante's "Commedia"). Generalized sense of "quality of being amusing" dates from 1877.

Comedy aims at entertaining by the fidelity with which it presents life as we know it, farce at raising laughter by the outrageous absurdity of the situation or characters exhibited, & burlesque at tickling the fancy of the audience by caricaturing plays or actors with whose style it is familiar. [Fowler]