Histrionic means wildly theatrical in showing feeling. A histrionic display.
It is always a criticism, since it says the feeling was performed rather than felt. The Latin behind it means belonging to an actor, which is exactly the accusation.
1adjectivehistrionicWildly theatrical in showing feeling.
“The whole histrionic scene was over in about a minute.”
histrionic is a quality.
Latin histrionicus comes from histrio, an actor.
Latin
histriōnicus — pertaining to acting; scurrilous, shameful; wretched
English, today
histrionic
Built from
Borrowed from Latin histriōnicus (“pertaining to acting; scurrilous, shameful; wretched”), from Latin histriōnicus (“pertaining to acting and the theatre”), from histriō (“actor, player”) + -icus. by surface analysis, en + histrion + ic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA