elegy
a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.
a poem written in elegiac meter.
a sad or mournful musical composition.
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Origin of elegy
1Words that may be confused with elegy
- elegy , eulogy
Words Nearby elegy
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use elegy in a sentence
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.
Instead, we see just flashes of the carnage and human toll as the song ascends into an elegy sung by Snyder favorite Allison Crowe.
Why Isn’t Sean Spicer Mauled by Zombies in Zack Snyder’s ‘Army of the Dead?’ | Melissa Leon | May 21, 2021 | The Daily BeastI hope this is not an elegy in the sense that what it represents is not lost but it could become an elegy.
Legendary Documentarian Frederick Wiseman Shows Us How Berkeley Works | Nico Hines | November 10, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTWhite Nights By Fyodor Dostoyevsky White Nights is also an elegy to a love that never was.
Book Bag: André Aciman’s Favorite Novellas of Unconsummated Loves | André Aciman | January 1, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTPart ghost story, part noir, part elegy, Bag of Bones is a compelling read about loss and family.
Remedial Reader: The Essential Stephen King Back List | Jessica Ferri | April 25, 2012 | 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.
The next day he composed a beautiful elegy upon “the sister of the prisoner.”
My Ten Years' Imprisonment | Silvio PellicoThe principal classes of lyric poetry are the song, the ode, the elegy, and the sonnet.
English: Composition and Literature | W. F. (William Franklin) WebsterA 'byplay' bearing the same name follows an elegy upon the death of an only son.
Mopsus laments his death; Menalcas proclaims his divinity; the whole eclogue consisting of an elegy and an apotheosis.
Dryden's Works (13 of 18): Translations; Pastorals | John Dryden
British Dictionary definitions for elegy
/ (ˈɛlɪdʒɪ) /
a mournful or plaintive poem or song, esp a lament for the dead
poetry or a poem written in elegiac couplets or stanzas
Origin of elegy
1confusable For elegy
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
Cultural definitions for elegy
[ (el-uh-jee) ]
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.)
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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