Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A poem composed in elegiac couplets.
- noun A poem or song composed especially as a lament for a deceased person.
- noun Something resembling such a poem or song.
- noun Music A composition that is melancholy or pensive in tone.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In classical poetry, a poem written in elegiac verse.
- noun A mournful or plaintive poem; a poem or song expressive of sorrow and lamentation; a dirge; a funeral song.
- noun Any serious poem pervaded by a tone of melancholy, whether grief is actually expressed or not: as, Gray's “Elegy in a Country Churchyard.”
- noun In music, a sad or funeral composition, vocal or instrumental, whether actually commemorative or not; a dirge.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A mournful or plaintive poem; a funereal song; a poem of lamentation.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
mournful orplaintive poem ; afuneral song; a poem oflamentation .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a mournful poem; a lament for the dead
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The elegy is one of our necessary forms as we try to come to terms with the fact that people around us die, that we, too, will die.
Día de los Muertos Maggie Jochild 2007
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The other elegy is shorter and less striking in conception, but gives a similar impression of the importance assigned to Louis de
The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) Henry Martyn Baird
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This inimitable pathetic elegy is supposed by many writers to have become a national war song, and to have been taught to the young Israelites under the name of "The Bow," in conformity with the practice of Hebrew and many classical writers in giving titles to their songs from the principal theme (Ps 22: 1; 56: 1; 60: 1; 80: 1; 100: 1).
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The annex'd elegy is on a gravestone in the churchyard at Hythe.
The annex'd elegy is on a gravestone in the churchyard at Hythe. 1794
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The second alphabetical elegy is set to the same mournful tune with the former, and the substance of it is much the same; it begins with Ecah, as that did, How sad is our case!
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi) 1721
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1794.14 - "The annex'd elegy is on a gravestone in the churchyard at Hythe."
The annex'd elegy is on a gravestone in the churchyard at Hythe. 1794
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As elsewhere in Canto 2, here the occasion for elegy is young male loveliness dead betimes: "Thou art gone, thou lov'd and lovely one,/Whom youth and youth's affection bound to me" (st.
'A darkling plain': Hemans, Byron and _The Sceptic; A Poem_ 2001
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The form of the elegy is a dialogue betwixt a passenger and a domestic servant.
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War Poetry in the Age of Romanticism 1793-1815/1794.14 "The annex'd elegy is on a gravestone in the churchyard at Hythe." "
The annex'd elegy is on a gravestone in the churchyard at Hythe. 1794
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Except the fifth elegy, which is tainted with immodesty, the others, particularly the first, are highly beautiful, and may be placed in competition with any other productions of the elegiac kind.
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 02: Augustus Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
milosrdenstvi commented on the word elegy
"Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die."
-- Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard
June 18, 2009
Dan337 commented on the word elegy
January 1, 2011