elegy

[el-i-jee]

noun

plural

elegies 

1. a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.

2. a poem written in elegiac meter.

3. a sad or mournful musical composition.

elegy

/ ˈɛlɪdʒɪ /

noun

1. a mournful or plaintive poem or song, esp a lament for the dead

2. poetry or a poem written in elegiac couplets or stanzas

elegy

1. A form of poetry that mourns the loss of someone who has died or something that has deteriorated. A notable example is the “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” by Thomas Gray. (Compare eulogy.)

Confusables Note

See eulogy

Word History and Origins

Origin of elegy¹

First recorded in 1505–15; from Middle French or directly from Latin elegīa, from Greek elegeîa “elegiac poem or inscription,” originally plural of elegeîon “a distich consisting of an hexameter and a penameter,” equivalent to éleg(os) “song, melody,” later “a lament” + -eios adjective suffix

Word History and Origins

Origin of elegy¹

C16: via French and Latin from Greek elegeia, from elegos lament sung to flute accompaniment

Example Sentences

The version here, offered in elegy, is slow but not somber, gripping but also soft-edged.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

“Bread of Angels” is also an elegy, not just for lost loved ones but for times, places and even physical things.

Read more on Salon

"She was at death's door, and she knew I could write, so she asked me to write her an elegy if the worst came to the worst."

Read more on BBC

The novel reads like a wintry elegy to the once proud cad.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Linklater’s movies have frequently featured affable underdogs, but by contrast, “Blue Moon” is an elegy to a bitter, insecure man whose view of himself as a failure has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Read more on Los Angeles Times