elegiac
used in, suitable for, or resembling an elegy.
expressing sorrow or lamentation: elegiac strains.
Classical Prosody. noting a distich or couplet the first line of which is a dactylic hexameter and the second a pentameter, or a verse differing from the hexameter by suppression of the arsis or metrically unaccented part of the third and the sixth foot.
an elegiac or distich verse.
a poem in such distichs or verses.
Origin of elegiac
1Other words from elegiac
- el·e·gi·a·cal·ly, adverb
Words Nearby elegiac
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use elegiac in a sentence
The poems are elegiac, brooding and death-obsessed, haunted by intimations of mortality, by ghosts facing backward with regret and forward with trepidation.
Louise Gluck’s first collection since her Nobel gracefully captures our fragility | Troy Jollimore | November 4, 2021 | Washington PostThe novel balances stunning prose, depicting the characters’ elegiac love for their land and community, with a sobering lesson about the implications of environmental racism.
20 Essential Works of Climate Fiction for Your Reading List | smurguia | October 5, 2021 | Outside OnlineIt doesn’t help that “Joe Bell” works overtime to tug our heartstrings with its swelling, elegiac score or its reliance on tear-jerking tropes, nor that the focus on Joe’s inner turmoil effectively upstages Jadin’s torment.
Wahlberg walks for redemption in disappointing ‘Joe Bell’ | John Paul King | July 22, 2021 | Washington BladeThey are variously loud, meditative, dramatic, witty, sexy, searing, and elegiac.
“I drive through the streets and see people without hope,” he says in the elegiac narration that ends the film.
Are Narcocorrido Mexican Drug Ballads Really That Bad? | Jimmy So | November 24, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
Six Feet Under ended its six-season run with perhaps the most elegiac, moving final scene a series has ever produced.
‘Breaking Bad’ and TV’s Five Most Shocking Flash-Forward Scenes | Kevin Fallon | August 12, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTAs David Quammen described in his elegiac The Song of the Dodo, islands are “where species go to die.”
Why Do We Save Some Species and Let Others Get Devastated? | Melissa Holbrook Pierson | May 21, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTBut he is one of the best deadline artists in the business, and his series on the dying of his father was unflinching and elegiac.
John Avlon’s Picks for 12 Best Opinion Columns of 2012 | John Avlon | December 31, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTCan any of your readers tell me whence comes the following Sotadic elegiac poem, and construe it for me?
Such were among the great elegiac poets of Rome, who were generally devoted to the delineation of the passion of love.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume I | John LordTibullus, also a famous elegiac poet, was born the same year as Ovid, and was the friend of the poet Horace.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume I | John LordOn the fall of Napoleon, Béranger took it upon himself to sing the glory of the fallen empire in elegiac strains.
A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year | Edwin EmersonEugenia failed not to observe her appointment the next morning, which was devoted to elegiac poetry.
Camilla | Fanny Burney
British Dictionary definitions for elegiac
/ (ˌɛlɪˈdʒaɪək) /
resembling, characteristic of, relating to, or appropriate to an elegy
lamenting; mournful; plaintive
denoting or written in elegiac couplets or elegiac stanzas
(often plural) an elegiac couplet or stanza
Derived forms of elegiac
- elegiacally, adverb
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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