elegiac, a. and n.
(ɛlɪˈdʒaɪæk)
Also 6 eligiack.
[ad. L. elegīac-us, ad. Gr. ἐλεγειακός, f. ἐλεγεῖον elegy.]
A. adj.
1. Prosody. Appropriate to elegies. spec. Usually applied to the metre so called in Greek and Latin, which consists of a (dactylic) hexameter and pentameter, forming the elegiac distich. Sometimes the term elegiac verse has been applied to the pentameter of the couplet separately.
| 1586 Webbe Eng. Poetrie (Arb.) 86 The most vsuall kindes [of verse] are foure, the Heroic, Elegiac, Iambick, and Lyric. 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 1246 A chronicler penning the historie of these affaires in elegiack verses. 1741 Watts Improv. Mind (1801) 62 He has turned the same psalms..into elegiac verse. 1779 Johnson L.P., Hammond Wks. III. 240 Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten syllables elegiac, it is difficult to tell. 1846 Grote Greece (1862) I. xx. 503 The iambic and elegiac metres..do not reach up to the year 700 b.c. 1873 Symonds Grk. Poets i. 15 The pathetic melody of the Elegiac metre. |
2. Of the nature of an elegy; pertaining to elegies; hence, mournful, melancholy, plaintive; also (rarely) of a person, melancholy, pensive.
| 1644 Bulwer Chiron. 20 An ingenious friend..in his Elegiack knell. 1720 Gay Poems (1745) II. 18 He..Might sweetly mourn in Elegiac verse. 1752 Gray Wks. (1825) II. 169 Mr. Lyttleton is a gentle elegiac person. c 1800 K. White Rem. (1837) 383 Its elegiac delicacy and querimonious plaintiveness. 1808 Scott Marm. iii. Introd., Hast thou no elegiac verse For Brunswick's venerable hearse? 1856 Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh i. 994 Elegiac griefs, and songs of love. |
3. elegiac poet: one who writes a. in elegiac metre; b. in a mournful or pensive strain.
| 1581 Sidney Def. Poesie (Arb.) 28 The most notable [denominations of poets] bee the Heroicke, Tragicke..Iambic, Elegiacke. Some of these being termed..by the sortes of verses they liked best to write in. 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie i. xi. (Arb.) 40. 1855 H. Reed Lect. Eng. Lit. x. (1878) 319 It is the theme of the elegiac poet, to show the virtues of sorrow. 1888 Spectator 30 June 875/2 Matthew Arnold..the greatest elegiac poet of our generation. |
B. n. † a. An elegiac poet (obs.). b. pl. Elegiac verses (sense A. 1).
| 1581 Sidney Def. Poesie (1622) 515 The lamenting Elegiacke..who bewayleth..the weakenesse of mankinde. 1774 T. Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry (1840) II. 508 His Latin elegiacs are pure. 1886 F. H. Doyle Reminiscences 30, I soon acquired ease..in rattling over my elegiacs. |
Hence as combining form eleˈgiaco-.
| 1832 Carlyle in Fraser's Mag. V. 255 We named Rousseau's Confessions an elegiaco-didactic Poem. |