elegy
pronunciation
How to pronounce elegy in British English:
UK [ˈelədʒi]
How to pronounce elegy in American English:
US [ˈɛlədʒi]
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- Noun:
- a mournful poem; a lament for the dead
Word Origin
- elegy
- elegy: [16] Greek élegos originally signified simply ‘song’ (Aristophanes, for example, used it for the song of a nightingale in his play Birds). It is not clear where it came from, although it has been speculated that the Greeks may have borrowed it from the Phrygians, an Indo- European people of western and central Asia Minor, and that originally it denoted ‘flute song’ (the long-held derivation from Greek e e légein ‘cry woe! woe!’ is not tenable). Later on it came to mean specifically ‘song of mourning’, and its adjective derivative elegeíā passed as a noun via Latin and French into English.
- elegy (n.)
- 1510s, from Middle French elegie, from Latin elegia, from Greek elegeia ode "an elegaic song," from elegeia, fem. of elegeios "elegaic," from elegos "poem or song of lament," later "poem written in elegiac verse," which is of uncertain origin, perhaps from a Phrygian word. Related: Elegiast.
Example
- 1. Or is their devotion already an elegy rather than an anthem ?
- 2. His book is not intended to be a complete history but a personal elegy .
- 3. " It is more like a funeral and an elegy rather than a concert , " a photographer who pictured theconcert said .
- 4. The dozen or so inner-city teenagers grouped in the classroom scribble notes as she and a second muslim girl critique alfred tennyson 's 1835 elegy to his late friend arthur hallam .