Trivia Time

Which song contains the famous lyric "We sang dirges in the dark"?

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dirge

American  

[durj] / dɜrdʒ /

noun

• dirges
  plural

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

Derived Forms

• dirgeful
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• dirges
  plural

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

See Examples For:

dirge dirges

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

Instead, they foundered in the breeze, squeezing out whatever bitter juice was left in a dirge that would prove to drag on for at least another week.

From Slate ● Feb. 23, 2026

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

From Barron's ● Feb. 19, 2026

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

Now the captain plays a mournful, chilling dirge on his organ as the Nautilus sleeps in the wastelands of the sea.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

Anchored on a near-orchestral soundstage, its 20 tracks ricochet from in-your-face punk dissonance to majestic broken-heart dirges, a lovely duet with St. Vincent, rootsy folk interludes and farfisa-rich lounge.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026

A complementary contrast was Lenny Kravitz performing "Calling All Angels" during the In Memoriam segment, lending it an air of sweet remembrance as opposed to dirges of yesteryear.

From Salon ● Mar. 13, 2023

Orthodox Christian priests led a vigil in Brovary on Thursday, chanting dirges and burning incense as residents placed flowers and cuddly toys at a makeshift memorial near the nursery.

From Reuters ● Jan. 19, 2023

Friends said that Metallica music would have been more fitting for his funeral than the military dirges that now play in Lviv’s Lychakiv cemetery daily.

From New York Times ● Jun. 22, 2022

At first she played “Yori Yori” and “Obi Mu O” endlessly and then she stopped, because the songs brought to her memories a finality, as though they were dirges.

From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Related Words

• elegy
• hymn