elegiac

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   expressing sorrow often for something past

   An elegiac lament for youthful ideals.

2. 2
   adj

   resembling or characteristic of or appropriate to an elegy

   An elegiac poem on a friend's death.

3. 3
   adj

   Of or relating to an elegy.

   The elegiac distich or couplet, consisting of a dactylic hexameter and pentameter.

4. 4
   adj

   Expressing sorrow or mourning.

   Hast thou no elegiac verse / For Brunswick's venerable hearse, / What! not a line, a tear, a sigh, / When valour bleeds for liberty?

From Middle French élégiaque, from Latin elegīacus, from Ancient Greek ἐλεγειακός (elegeiakós).

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