dirge

American  

[durj] / dɜrdʒ /

noun

1. a funeral song or tune, or one expressing mourning in commemoration of the dead.

2. any composition resembling such a song or tune in character, as a poem of lament for the dead or solemn, mournful music.

   Tennyson's dirge for the Duke of Wellington.

3. a mournful sound resembling a dirge.

   The autumn wind sang the dirge of summer.

4. Ecclesiastical. the office of the dead, or the funeral service as sung.

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dirge British  

/ dɜːdʒ /

noun

1. a chant of lamentation for the dead

2. the funeral service in its solemn or sung forms

3. any mourning song or melody

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Other Word Forms

• dirgeful
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of dirge

1175–1225; Middle English dir ( i ) ge < Latin: direct, syncopated variant of dīrige (imperative of dīrigere ), first word of the antiphon sung in the Latin office of the dead (Psalm V, 8)

Explanation

A dirge is a song of mourning, performed as a memorial to someone who’s died. As you might imagine, a dirge is usually quite sad. Another word with a similar meaning that you might know is “requiem.” The noun dirge comes from the Latin dirige, which means “direct,” and is the beginning of a prayer that translates as “Direct my way in your sight, O Lord my God.” Dirge can still have a religious meaning, but it can also be any sad and mournful song, poem, or hymn composed or performed in memory of someone who has died. You can also say that something mournful sounds like a dirge, using the word in a more poetic sense.

Example Sentences

Its internal speaker plays a rumbling soundtrack that sends the drumsticks attached to the instrument flittering, giving the sense of a ghostly presence tapping out a brooding dirge.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 14, 2026

It might be time to pause the funeral dirge for software and services stocks.

From Barron's • Feb. 19, 2026

The mystery, along with Lightfoot’s mournful and eminently meme-able dirge, created fertile soil for a cultural resurgence today—one driven largely by Gen Z and millennials who love mythologizing working-class tragedies and Midwestern nostalgia.

From Slate • Nov. 10, 2025

But this isn’t a dirge — it’s a fight song and a taunt, and it sets the tone of comfortable, mischievous defiance that threads through the entire album.

From Salon • Sep. 2, 2025

After sterile weeks he came to an unknown city where all the bells were tolling a dirge.

From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Related Words

• elegy
• hymn