elegy

[ el-i-jee ]

noun

, plural el·e·gies.

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 .)

Usage

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

When the qualifying window for Tokyo ended on June 29, several media outlets published articles that read like elegies on the competitive career of an athlete who embodied what is perhaps the greatest conundrum in contemporary sports.

From Outside Online

Instead, we see just flashes of the carnage and human toll as the song ascends into an elegy sung by Snyder favorite Allison Crowe.

From The Daily Beast

I hope this is not an elegy in the sense that what it represents is not lost but it could become an elegy.

From The Daily Beast

White Nights By Fyodor Dostoyevsky White Nights is also an elegy to a love that never was.

From The Daily Beast

Part ghost story, part noir, part elegy, Bag of Bones is a compelling read about loss and family.

From The Daily Beast

It was a species of brief elegy to the memory of Turenne, whom the French soldier still regarded as his tutelar genius.

From Project Gutenberg

The next day he composed a beautiful elegy upon “the sister of the prisoner.”

From Project Gutenberg

The principal classes of lyric poetry are the song, the ode, the elegy, and the sonnet.

From Project Gutenberg

A 'byplay' bearing the same name follows an elegy upon the death of an only son.

From Project Gutenberg

Mopsus laments his death; Menalcas proclaims his divinity; the whole eclogue consisting of an elegy and an apotheosis.

From Project Gutenberg