MEANING
A poem or other reflective work expressing sorrow for someone dead or something lost.
Use it for
Reflective mourning, art about vanished lives or places.Allow grief to unfold through remembrance rather than immediate alarm.
Words that belong together
- write an elegy
- elegy for a friend
- pastoral elegy
On the page
The elegy mentioned her laughter but not the manner of her death.
He read the unfinished elegy beside the nursery window.
A film about the demolished estate became an elegy for a way of life.
Nearby words
Related words
Word forms
- Base
- elegy
Usage notes
Primary category: gothic. Often contemplative rather than merely tearful; not the same as a funeral speech praising the deceased. Plural elegies. Derived adjective elegiac, not an inflection.
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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