Adjacent Words

Elegy definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

EL'EGY, n. [L. elegia; Gr. to speak or utter.; L. lugeo. The verbs may have a common origin, for to speak and to cry out in wailing are only modifications of the same act, to throw out the voice with more or less vehemence.]
1. A mournful or plaintive poem, or a funeral song; a poem or a song expressive of sorrow and lamentation.
2. A short poem without points or affected elegancies.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a mournful poem; a lament for the dead [syn: elegy, lament]

Merriam Webster's

noun (plural -gies) Etymology: Latin elegia poem in elegiac couplets, from Greek elegeia, elegeion, from elegos song of mourning Date: 1501 1. a poem in elegiac couplets 2. a. a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation especially for one who is dead b. something (as a speech) resembling such a song or poem 3. a. a pensive or reflective poem that is usually nostalgic or melancholy b. a short pensive musical composition

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. (pl. -ies) 1 a song of lament, esp. for the dead (sometimes vaguely used of other poems). 2 a poem in elegiac metre. Etymology: F élégie or L elegia f. Gk elegeia f. elegos mournful poem

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Elegy El"e*gy, n.; pl. Elegies. [L. elegia, Gr. ?, fem. sing. (cf. ?, prop., neut. pl. of ? a distich in elegiac verse), fr. ? elegiac, fr. ? a song of mourning.] A mournful or plaintive poem; a funereal song; a poem of lamentation. --Shak.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(elegies) An elegy is a sad poem, often about someone who has died. ...a touching elegy for a lost friend. N-COUNT

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Dirge, lament, epicedium, mournful song, funeral song. 2. Serious, meditative, or melancholy poem.

Moby Thesaurus

English sonnet, Horatian ode, Italian sonnet, Petrarchan sonnet, Pindaric ode, Sapphic ode, Shakespearean sonnet, alba, anacreontic, balada, ballad, ballade, bucolic, canso, chanson, clerihew, coronach, dead march, death knell, death song, dirge, dithyramb, eclogue, epic, epicedium, epigram, epithalamium, epode, epopee, epopoeia, epos, eulogy, funeral march, funeral oration, funeral song, georgic, ghazel, graveside oration, haiku, idyll, jingle, keen, knell, limerick, lyric, madrigal, monody, muffled drums, narrative poem, nursery rhyme, ode, palinode, passing bell, pastoral, pastoral elegy, pastorela, pastourelle, poem, prothalamium, requiem, rhyme, rondeau, rondel, roundel, roundelay, satire, sestina, sloka, song, sonnet, sonnet sequence, tanka, tenso, tenzone, threnode, threnody, triolet, troubadour poem, verse, verselet, versicle, villanelle, virelay