elegiac

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

• IPA^(key): /ˌɛləˈd͡ʒaɪək/, /ˌɛləˈd͡ʒaɪæk/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪək, -aɪæk

elegiac (comparative more elegiac, superlative most elegiac)

1. Of or relating to an elegy.

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

2. Expressing sorrow or mourning.
   • 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Introduction to Canto Third: To William Erskine, Esq.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, stanza III, page 119:

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

   • 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “First Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC, page 36:

     And elegiac griefs, and songs of love,

elegiac (plural elegiacs)

1. A poem composed in the couplet style of classical elegies: a line of dactylic hexameter followed by a line of dactylic pentameter.
   • 1748, John Upton, Critical Observations on Shakespeare‎, 2nd edition, page 385:

     His saphics are worse, if possible, than his elegiacs

Borrowed from French élégiaque.

elegiac m or n (feminine singular elegiacă, masculine plural elegiaci, feminine and neuter plural elegiace)

1. elegiac