monody
Americannoun
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monodies
plural
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a Greek ode sung by a single voice, as in a tragedy; lament.
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a poem in which the poet or speaker laments another's death; threnody.
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Music.
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a style of composition in which one part or melody predominates; homophony, as distinguished from polyphony.
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a piece in this style.
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noun
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(in Greek tragedy) an ode sung by a single actor
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any poem of lament for someone's death
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music a style of composition consisting of a single vocal part, usually with accompaniment
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of monody
First recorded in 1580–90; from Late Latin monōdia, from Greek monōidía “a solo, monody,” equivalent to monōid(ós) “singing alone” + -ia noun suffix; see mon-, ode) -y 3
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“The Wishing Tree,” a beautiful, seemingly slight nine-line monody, commemorates his laconic, generous mother—“I thought of her as the wishing tree that died / And saw it lifted, root and branch, to heaven.”
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 3, 2019
Suddenly, a hidden 35-piece baroque orchestra begins the accompaniment to the introductory monody, and a spotlight picks out a bearded Father Time at the door of a pyramid above the abyss.
From Time Magazine Archive
It is a short monody, or Ode of one stanza containing fourteen lines, with uncommonly frequent returns of rhymes more or less combined.
From A History of English Poetry: an Unpublished Continuation by Thomas Warton
Under this name William Drummond signalized Henry, prince of Wales, eldest son of James I., in the monody entitled Tears on the Death of Mœliadës.
From Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer
In my last communication on this subject, I forgot to remark on the strange title given to the monody on Mr. Browne.
From Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by George Bell
The poems of Sappho so mysteriously lost to us seem to have consisted of at least nine books of odes, together with epithalamia, epigrams, elegies, and monodies.
From Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics by Bliss Carman
She wrote, it is believed, at least nine books of odes, together with epithalamia, epigrams, elegies, and monodies.
From The Circus, and Other Essays and Fugitive Pieces by Joyce Kilmer
So much for them: but still I'd like to show The way in which your monodies are framed.
From The Frogs by Aristophanes
I had in my collection no fewer than forty-seven monodies and dirges on Stonewall Jackson; some dozens on Ashby and a score on Stuart.
From Four Years in Rebel Capitals An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death by T. C. DeLeon
His business was to devise dirges, monodies, laments, descortz in the Provençal manner; to cry "Heigho!" and "Well-a-day!" not "Ban!" or "Out, haro!"
From Little Novels of Italy by Maurice Henry Hewlett
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
