elegiacadj.n.

Brit.

/ˌɛlᵻˈdʒʌɪək/, U.S.

/ˌɛləˈdʒaɪək/,

/əˈlidʒiˌæk/

Forms: 1500s eelegiac, 1500s eligiack, 1500s–1700s elegiack, 1500s– elegiac, 1600s elegeick, 1600s elegiacke, 1600s elegiak, 1600s elegiaque, 1700s– elegaic (nonstandard).

Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from Latin. Partly a borrowing from Greek. Etymons: French elegiaque; Latin elegiacus; Greek ἐλεγειακός.

Etymology: < (i) Middle French elegiaque, adjective (c1400 designating a poet who writes elegies), and noun (1576 denoting a writer of elegies in the passage translated in quot. 1594 at sense B. 1, or earlier), its etymon (ii) post-classical Latin elegiacus (3rd cent.), and its etymon (iii) Hellenistic Greek ἐλεγειακός, designating a metre which consists of a hexameter and a pentameter or a poem written in this metre < ancient Greek ἐλεγεῖον elegy n. + -ακός -ac suffix. Compare Catalan elegíac (1696), Spanish elegíaco (15th cent.), Portuguese elegíaco (1609), Italian elegiaco (a1375). Compare earlier elegiacal adj., elegy n.In sense B. 2 after post-classical Latin elegiacus (masculine) pentameter line (4th cent.), elegiacum (neuter) metre which consists of a hexameter and a pentameter (5th cent.).

A. adj.

1. Designating a writer of elegies. Chiefly in elegiac poet.

ΘΚΠ

society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > poet > poet by kind of poem > [noun] > lyric poet > elegiac poet

elegiaca1586

elegiac poeta1586

elegiographer1623

elegiast1720

monodist1751

elegist1762

threnodist1827

a1586 Sir P. Sidney Apol. Poetrie (1595) sig. C3^v The most notable [kinds of poets] bee the Heroick, Lirick, Tragick..Iambick, Elegiack... Some of these being termed..by the sorts of verses they liked best to write in.

1589 G. Puttenham Arte Eng. Poesie i. xi. 20 There were an other sort [of poet], who..coueted to bemone their estates at large, & the perplexities of loue in a certain pitious verse called Elegie, and thence were called Eligiack.

1634 F. Hickes in tr. Lucian Certaine Sel. Dialogues sig. B2 His Fathers name was Lucius, his brothers Caius, who as he sayes, was an Elegiack Poet, and a Sooth-sayer.

1709 tr. L. E. Du Pin Universal Libr. Historians II. xxxiii. 103 He was son of Arienides, and Disciple of Evenus an Elegiack Poet [Fr. Poëte Elegiaque].

1783 J. Pinkerton Select Sc. Ballads II. p. xi Virgil, who was born an elegiac poet, but never happened upon his proper province, has in pastoral only displayed excellent skill.

a1854 H. Reed Lect. Eng. Lit. (1878) x. 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.

1941 Poetry June 155 Gregory seems happiest as an elegiac poet, celebrating, with his grieving rhetoric, the lost places, the lost persons, the lost world of his inheritance.

2008 C. A. Faraone Stanzaic Archit. of Early Greek Elegy ii. 42 The early elegiac poet could deploy a single elegiac stanza in a variety of ways.

2. Prosody. Esp. of Greek and Latin poetry: written in a metre consisting of a hexameter followed by a pentameter; designating this metre. Also (of English verse): consisting of quatrains in iambic pentameter. Cf. elegy n. 3.In some instances there is overlap with sense A. 3 (see note at elegy n. 3).

ΘΚΠ

society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > versification > metre > [adjective] > elegiac metre

elegiacal1542

elegiac1586

long and short1715

1586 W. Webbe tr. Horace in Disc. Eng. Poetrie sig. K.i The most vsuall kindes [of verse] are foure, the Heroic, Eelegiac, Iambick, and Lyric.

1602 T. Campion Obseruations Art Eng. Poesie vii. 25 The Elegeick verses..are deriu'd out of our owne naturall numbers as neere the imitation of the Greekes and Latines, as our heauy sillables will permit.

1603 P. Holland tr. Plutarch Morals 1246 A chronicler penning the historie of these affaires in elegiack verses [Fr. en vers Elegiaques; Gk. ἐλεγείᾳ].

1698 Earl of Orrery Dr. Bentley's Diss. Examin'd 256 I am far from thinking that the Fables..were written first in Anacreontic, Trochaic, or Elegiac Measure.

1741 I. Watts Improvem. Mind i. vii. 114 He has turned the same Psalms..into Elegiac Verse.

1781 S. Johnson Hammond in Pref. Wks. Eng. Poets IX. 8 Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten syllables elegiac, it is difficult to tell.

1785 T. Warton in J. Milton Poems (new ed.) Pref. p. xiv That Ovid among the Latin poets was Milton's favourite, appears not only from his elegiac but his hexametric poetry.

1846 G. Grote Hist. Greece II. i. xx. 156 The iambic and elegiac metres..do not reach up to the year 700 b.c.

1896 J. W. Mackail Lat. Lit. (ed. 2) 128 The later metaphrasts, who occupied themselves with turning heroic into elegiac poems by inserting a pentameter between each two lines.

a1916 W. R. Hardie Res Metrica (1920) 267 Elegiac and iambic poems had at first a musical accompaniment.

2005 Internat. Jrnl. Classical Trad. 12 245 The lines are all in elegiac meter.

3. Of the nature of an elegy; of or relating to elegies. Hence: mournful, melancholy, plaintive.

ΘΚΠ

the world > life > death > obsequies > formal or ceremonial mourning > [adjective] > dirge

elegiacalc1487

elegiac1598

epicedial?c1615

epicedian1623

elegious1624

threnodian1634

threnetic1656

threnodial1819

threnetical1829

myriological1848

threnodical1881

threnodic1891

society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > poem or piece of poetry > lyric poem > [adjective] > elegiac

elegiacalc1487

elegiac1598

elegic1603

elegious1624

threnodian1634

threnetic1656

threnodial1819

threnetical1829

threnodical1881

threnodic1891

1598 E. Guilpin Skialetheia sig. A5 Heere one's Elegiack pen patheticall, His parting from his Mistris doth bewaile.

1612 G. Wither Prince Henries Obsequies sig. A2 George Wither presents these Elegiak-sonnets, and wisheth double Comfort after his two-fold sorrow.

1616 J. Bullokar Eng. Expositor Elegiacke, Mournefull.

1644 J. Bulwer Chirologia 20 An ingenious friend..in his Elegiack knell.

1724 N. Amhurst Oculus Britanniæ 53 Say, muse, in strains of elegiack woe, What dire effects from such disasters flow.

1748 T. Gray Let. in Corr. (1971) I. 296 Mr. Lyttleton is a gentle elegiac person.

a1806 H. K. White Remains (1807) II. 242 Its elegiac delicacy and querimonious plaintiveness.

1885 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 656/1 Those principal forms of poetry now used in common by all Mohammedan nations—the forms of the ḳaṣída (the encomiastic, elegiac, or satirical poem), the ghazal or ode [etc.].

1901 J. B. Kenyon Loiterings in Old Fields i. 11 Out of the stress and anguish of that bitter period came ‘In Memoriam’, the noblest elegiac poem to be found in any language.

1921 B. Perry Life & Lett. Henry Lee Higginson xiv. 524 It must not be thought..that the mood of Henry Higginson's last years was elegiac.

1960 Sunday Times 11 Sept. 37/1 The smaller, sophisticated, elegiac sound of modern jazz.

2012 M. Browning George Clooney 188 There is a strongly mournful, elegiac quality to the film.

B. n.

†1. A writer of elegies; an elegiac poet. Obsolete.

ΘΚΠ

society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > poet > poet by kind of poem > [noun] > lyric poet > elegiac poet

elegiaca1586

elegiac poeta1586

elegiographer1623

elegiast1720

monodist1751

elegist1762

threnodist1827

a1586 Sir P. Sidney Apol. Poetrie (1595) sig. F3 The lamenting Elegiack..who bewailes..the weakenes of man-kind.

1594 R. Ashley tr. L. le Roy Interchangeable Course v. f. 69 There hath bin a great companie of Tragicks, Comicks, Elegiacks [Fr. elegiaques], Lyricks [etc.].

1687 ‘Auson’ in J. Cleveland Wks. 279 Elegiacks..too short-lung'd to parallel thy Fame.

2. A verse or poem in elegiac metre; an elegy. Also as a mass noun: elegiac verse or metre.

ΘΚΠ

society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > poem or piece of poetry > types of poem according to form > [noun] > poem in elegiac metre

elegy?1553

elegiac1778

a1586 Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1590) iii. i. sig. Ii5^v He..put it in vers, hoping, that would draw her on to read the more, chusing the Elegiac as fittest for mourning.

c1620 T. Robinson Mary Magdalene (1899) i. 3 Some, Satyres; others, Epigrammes, desire..Others, a deepe conceited Pastorall, Or Elegiacks at a funerall.

?1660 T. Jordan Divinity & Morality sig. §8^v An Elegiack, in a double Acrostich, sacred to the memory of..Mrs. Margaret Jessop.

1729 J. Mitchell Monument 2 Let the Sons of Verse, Whose studied Elegiacs would prove Farce, Continue silent, as the gloomy Grave.

1778 T. Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry II. xv. 360 His Latin elegiacs are pure.

1869 XIX Cent. Oct. 336 Another poem is an elegiac on the death of Thomas R. Shepherd.

1886 F. H. Doyle Reminisc. 30 I soon acquired ease..in rattling over my elegiacs.

1926 Amer. Hist. Rev. 32 159 His elegiacs stir only a temporary warmth in the princes, lord mayors, and the like to whom they are dedicated.

1976 Classical World 69 393 West also persists with the old notion that elegiac was primarily sung to aulos accompaniment.

2003 Jrnl. Rom. Stud. 93 40 He also produced some elegiacs.

Compounds

elegiac couplet n. Prosody a couplet consisting of a hexameter followed by a pentameter; the verse form consisting of such couplets; cf. sense A. 2.

ΘΚΠ

society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > part of poem > [noun] > stanza > couplet > elegiac couplet

elegiac distich1665

elegiac couplet1790

elegy1794

1790 Trans. Royal Soc. Edinb. 2 ii. ii. iii. 106 The elegiac couplet is of the same kind.

1835 W. M. Leake Trav. in N. Greece II. xix. 511 One of these [inscriptions] is a fragment, preserving only the ending of two elegiac couplets.

1956 Traditio 12 104 Other longer pieces in dactylic hexameters or in elegiac couplet.

1990 Apollo July 4/1 The verse, a clumsy attempt at an elegiac couplet, defies easy scansion.

elegiac distich n. Prosody = elegiac couplet n.

ΘΚΠ

society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > part of poem > [noun] > stanza > couplet > elegiac couplet

elegiac distich1665

elegiac couplet1790

elegy1794

1665 T. Stanley tr. Ælian Various Hist. i. xvii. 10 They writ an Elegiack Distich [Gk. δίστιχον ἐλεγεῖον] in golden letters in a Sesamum.

1771 W. Lauder Calumny Display'd 22 His Hexameters would, in Grandeur and Loftiness, have excelled his Elegiac Distich.

1886 Amer. Jrnl. Philol. 7 251 An evident attempt to construct an elegiac distich, in which the pentameter, however, goes to pieces.

1940 Trans. & Proc. Amer. Philol. Assoc. 71 492 This principle of couplet-unity is of great importance in the interpretation of the elegiac distich.

2007 Stud. Philol. 104 38 Six lines of elegiac distich followed by six lines of hexameters.

elegiac quatrain n. Prosody a quatrain consisting of iambic pentameters rhyming abab; the verse form consisting of such quatrains.

ΚΠ

1794 Monthly Rev. Oct. 215 This tale, the incidents of which are common in many old ballads, is written with polished prolixity, in elegiac quatrains.

1871 Sat. Rev. 29 Apr. 543/2 He departs from the heroic couplet, in which he has clothed almost every other elegy, and resorts to what we may call English elegiac quatrains, with good effect.

1967 W. N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley Eng. Della Cruscans & their Time 51 The famous elegiac quatrain becomes the vehicle for Merry's black moods of introspection.

2006 Hermathena No. 181 244 Moero wrote epic, elegy, and lyric poetry, according to the Suda, but only a 10-line fragment in hexameter verse and two elegiac quatrains survive.

elegiac stanza n. Prosody = elegiac quatrain n.

ΚΠ

1764 Monthly Rev. June 450 Among these poems are many pretty pieces in the alternate elegiac stanza.

1869 R. F. Brewer Man. Eng. Prosody 17 Four heroics, with alternate rhymes, constitute the Elegiac Stanza.

1978 Times 3 Jan. 11/4 Students are sent out into the world able..to tell heroic couplets from blank verse and elegiac stanzas.

2009 A. Grossman True-love 157 ‘The Broken Tower’..consists of ten elegiac stanzas.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2014; most recently modified version published online June 2022).

单词	elegiac
释义	elegiacadj.n. Brit. /ˌɛlᵻˈdʒʌɪək/, U.S. /ˌɛləˈdʒaɪək/, /əˈlidʒiˌæk/ Forms: 1500s eelegiac, 1500s eligiack, 1500s–1700s elegiack, 1500s– elegiac, 1600s elegeick, 1600s elegiacke, 1600s elegiak, 1600s elegiaque, 1700s– elegaic (nonstandard). Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from Latin. Partly a borrowing from Greek. Etymons: French elegiaque; Latin elegiacus; Greek ἐλεγειακός. Etymology: < (i) Middle French elegiaque, adjective (c1400 designating a poet who writes elegies), and noun (1576 denoting a writer of elegies in the passage translated in quot. 1594 at sense B. 1, or earlier), its etymon (ii) post-classical Latin elegiacus (3rd cent.), and its etymon (iii) Hellenistic Greek ἐλεγειακός, designating a metre which consists of a hexameter and a pentameter or a poem written in this metre < ancient Greek ἐλεγεῖον elegy n. + -ακός -ac suffix. Compare Catalan elegíac (1696), Spanish elegíaco (15th cent.), Portuguese elegíaco (1609), Italian elegiaco (a1375). Compare earlier elegiacal adj., elegy n.In sense B. 2 after post-classical Latin elegiacus (masculine) pentameter line (4th cent.), elegiacum (neuter) metre which consists of a hexameter and a pentameter (5th cent.). A. adj. 1. Designating a writer of elegies. Chiefly in elegiac poet. ΘΚΠ society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > poet > poet by kind of poem > [noun] > lyric poet > elegiac poet elegiaca1586 elegiac poeta1586 elegiographer1623 elegiast1720 monodist1751 elegist1762 threnodist1827 a1586 Sir P. Sidney Apol. Poetrie (1595) sig. C3^v The most notable [kinds of poets] bee the Heroick, Lirick, Tragick..Iambick, Elegiack... Some of these being termed..by the sorts of verses they liked best to write in. 1589 G. Puttenham Arte Eng. Poesie i. xi. 20 There were an other sort [of poet], who..coueted to bemone their estates at large, & the perplexities of loue in a certain pitious verse called Elegie, and thence were called Eligiack. 1634 F. Hickes in tr. Lucian Certaine Sel. Dialogues sig. B2 His Fathers name was Lucius, his brothers Caius, who as he sayes, was an Elegiack Poet, and a Sooth-sayer. 1709 tr. L. E. Du Pin Universal Libr. Historians II. xxxiii. 103 He was son of Arienides, and Disciple of Evenus an Elegiack Poet [Fr. Poëte Elegiaque]. 1783 J. Pinkerton Select Sc. Ballads II. p. xi Virgil, who was born an elegiac poet, but never happened upon his proper province, has in pastoral only displayed excellent skill. a1854 H. Reed Lect. Eng. Lit. (1878) x. 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. 1941 Poetry June 155 Gregory seems happiest as an elegiac poet, celebrating, with his grieving rhetoric, the lost places, the lost persons, the lost world of his inheritance. 2008 C. A. Faraone Stanzaic Archit. of Early Greek Elegy ii. 42 The early elegiac poet could deploy a single elegiac stanza in a variety of ways. 2. Prosody. Esp. of Greek and Latin poetry: written in a metre consisting of a hexameter followed by a pentameter; designating this metre. Also (of English verse): consisting of quatrains in iambic pentameter. Cf. elegy n. 3.In some instances there is overlap with sense A. 3 (see note at elegy n. 3). ΘΚΠ society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > versification > metre > [adjective] > elegiac metre elegiacal1542 elegiac1586 long and short1715 1586 W. Webbe tr. Horace in Disc. Eng. Poetrie sig. K.i The most vsuall kindes [of verse] are foure, the Heroic, Eelegiac, Iambick, and Lyric. 1602 T. Campion Obseruations Art Eng. Poesie vii. 25 The Elegeick verses..are deriu'd out of our owne naturall numbers as neere the imitation of the Greekes and Latines, as our heauy sillables will permit. 1603 P. Holland tr. Plutarch Morals 1246 A chronicler penning the historie of these affaires in elegiack verses [Fr. en vers Elegiaques; Gk. ἐλεγείᾳ]. 1698 Earl of Orrery Dr. Bentley's Diss. Examin'd 256 I am far from thinking that the Fables..were written first in Anacreontic, Trochaic, or Elegiac Measure. 1741 I. Watts Improvem. Mind i. vii. 114 He has turned the same Psalms..into Elegiac Verse. 1781 S. Johnson Hammond in Pref. Wks. Eng. Poets IX. 8 Why Hammond or other writers have thought the quatrain of ten syllables elegiac, it is difficult to tell. 1785 T. Warton in J. Milton Poems (new ed.) Pref. p. xiv That Ovid among the Latin poets was Milton's favourite, appears not only from his elegiac but his hexametric poetry. 1846 G. Grote Hist. Greece II. i. xx. 156 The iambic and elegiac metres..do not reach up to the year 700 b.c. 1896 J. W. Mackail Lat. Lit. (ed. 2) 128 The later metaphrasts, who occupied themselves with turning heroic into elegiac poems by inserting a pentameter between each two lines. a1916 W. R. Hardie Res Metrica (1920) 267 Elegiac and iambic poems had at first a musical accompaniment. 2005 Internat. Jrnl. Classical Trad. 12 245 The lines are all in elegiac meter. 3. Of the nature of an elegy; of or relating to elegies. Hence: mournful, melancholy, plaintive. ΘΚΠ the world > life > death > obsequies > formal or ceremonial mourning > [adjective] > dirge elegiacalc1487 elegiac1598 epicedial?c1615 epicedian1623 elegious1624 threnodian1634 threnetic1656 threnodial1819 threnetical1829 myriological1848 threnodical1881 threnodic1891 society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > poem or piece of poetry > lyric poem > [adjective] > elegiac elegiacalc1487 elegiac1598 elegic1603 elegious1624 threnodian1634 threnetic1656 threnodial1819 threnetical1829 threnodical1881 threnodic1891 1598 E. Guilpin Skialetheia sig. A5 Heere one's Elegiack pen patheticall, His parting from his Mistris doth bewaile. 1612 G. Wither Prince Henries Obsequies sig. A2 George Wither presents these Elegiak-sonnets, and wisheth double Comfort after his two-fold sorrow. 1616 J. Bullokar Eng. Expositor Elegiacke, Mournefull. 1644 J. Bulwer Chirologia 20 An ingenious friend..in his Elegiack knell. 1724 N. Amhurst Oculus Britanniæ 53 Say, muse, in strains of elegiack woe, What dire effects from such disasters flow. 1748 T. Gray Let. in Corr. (1971) I. 296 Mr. Lyttleton is a gentle elegiac person. a1806 H. K. White Remains (1807) II. 242 Its elegiac delicacy and querimonious plaintiveness. 1885 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 656/1 Those principal forms of poetry now used in common by all Mohammedan nations—the forms of the ḳaṣída (the encomiastic, elegiac, or satirical poem), the ghazal or ode [etc.]. 1901 J. B. Kenyon Loiterings in Old Fields i. 11 Out of the stress and anguish of that bitter period came ‘In Memoriam’, the noblest elegiac poem to be found in any language. 1921 B. Perry Life & Lett. Henry Lee Higginson xiv. 524 It must not be thought..that the mood of Henry Higginson's last years was elegiac. 1960 Sunday Times 11 Sept. 37/1 The smaller, sophisticated, elegiac sound of modern jazz. 2012 M. Browning George Clooney 188 There is a strongly mournful, elegiac quality to the film. B. n. †1. A writer of elegies; an elegiac poet. Obsolete. ΘΚΠ society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > poet > poet by kind of poem > [noun] > lyric poet > elegiac poet elegiaca1586 elegiac poeta1586 elegiographer1623 elegiast1720 monodist1751 elegist1762 threnodist1827 a1586 Sir P. Sidney Apol. Poetrie (1595) sig. F3 The lamenting Elegiack..who bewailes..the weakenes of man-kind. 1594 R. Ashley tr. L. le Roy Interchangeable Course v. f. 69 There hath bin a great companie of Tragicks, Comicks, Elegiacks [Fr. elegiaques], Lyricks [etc.]. 1687 ‘Auson’ in J. Cleveland Wks. 279 Elegiacks..too short-lung'd to parallel thy Fame. 2. A verse or poem in elegiac metre; an elegy. Also as a mass noun: elegiac verse or metre. ΘΚΠ society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > poem or piece of poetry > types of poem according to form > [noun] > poem in elegiac metre elegy?1553 elegiac1778 a1586 Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1590) iii. i. sig. Ii5^v He..put it in vers, hoping, that would draw her on to read the more, chusing the Elegiac as fittest for mourning. c1620 T. Robinson Mary Magdalene (1899) i. 3 Some, Satyres; others, Epigrammes, desire..Others, a deepe conceited Pastorall, Or Elegiacks at a funerall. ?1660 T. Jordan Divinity & Morality sig. §8^v An Elegiack, in a double Acrostich, sacred to the memory of..Mrs. Margaret Jessop. 1729 J. Mitchell Monument 2 Let the Sons of Verse, Whose studied Elegiacs would prove Farce, Continue silent, as the gloomy Grave. 1778 T. Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry II. xv. 360 His Latin elegiacs are pure. 1869 XIX Cent. Oct. 336 Another poem is an elegiac on the death of Thomas R. Shepherd. 1886 F. H. Doyle Reminisc. 30 I soon acquired ease..in rattling over my elegiacs. 1926 Amer. Hist. Rev. 32 159 His elegiacs stir only a temporary warmth in the princes, lord mayors, and the like to whom they are dedicated. 1976 Classical World 69 393 West also persists with the old notion that elegiac was primarily sung to aulos accompaniment. 2003 Jrnl. Rom. Stud. 93 40 He also produced some elegiacs. Compounds elegiac couplet n. Prosody a couplet consisting of a hexameter followed by a pentameter; the verse form consisting of such couplets; cf. sense A. 2. ΘΚΠ society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > part of poem > [noun] > stanza > couplet > elegiac couplet elegiac distich1665 elegiac couplet1790 elegy1794 1790 Trans. Royal Soc. Edinb. 2 ii. ii. iii. 106 The elegiac couplet is of the same kind. 1835 W. M. Leake Trav. in N. Greece II. xix. 511 One of these [inscriptions] is a fragment, preserving only the ending of two elegiac couplets. 1956 Traditio 12 104 Other longer pieces in dactylic hexameters or in elegiac couplet. 1990 Apollo July 4/1 The verse, a clumsy attempt at an elegiac couplet, defies easy scansion. elegiac distich n. Prosody = elegiac couplet n. ΘΚΠ society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > part of poem > [noun] > stanza > couplet > elegiac couplet elegiac distich1665 elegiac couplet1790 elegy1794 1665 T. Stanley tr. Ælian Various Hist. i. xvii. 10 They writ an Elegiack Distich [Gk. δίστιχον ἐλεγεῖον] in golden letters in a Sesamum. 1771 W. Lauder Calumny Display'd 22 His Hexameters would, in Grandeur and Loftiness, have excelled his Elegiac Distich. 1886 Amer. Jrnl. Philol. 7 251 An evident attempt to construct an elegiac distich, in which the pentameter, however, goes to pieces. 1940 Trans. & Proc. Amer. Philol. Assoc. 71 492 This principle of couplet-unity is of great importance in the interpretation of the elegiac distich. 2007 Stud. Philol. 104 38 Six lines of elegiac distich followed by six lines of hexameters. elegiac quatrain n. Prosody a quatrain consisting of iambic pentameters rhyming abab; the verse form consisting of such quatrains. ΚΠ 1794 Monthly Rev. Oct. 215 This tale, the incidents of which are common in many old ballads, is written with polished prolixity, in elegiac quatrains. 1871 Sat. Rev. 29 Apr. 543/2 He departs from the heroic couplet, in which he has clothed almost every other elegy, and resorts to what we may call English elegiac quatrains, with good effect. 1967 W. N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley Eng. Della Cruscans & their Time 51 The famous elegiac quatrain becomes the vehicle for Merry's black moods of introspection. 2006 Hermathena No. 181 244 Moero wrote epic, elegy, and lyric poetry, according to the Suda, but only a 10-line fragment in hexameter verse and two elegiac quatrains survive. elegiac stanza n. Prosody = elegiac quatrain n. ΚΠ 1764 Monthly Rev. June 450 Among these poems are many pretty pieces in the alternate elegiac stanza. 1869 R. F. Brewer Man. Eng. Prosody 17 Four heroics, with alternate rhymes, constitute the Elegiac Stanza. 1978 Times 3 Jan. 11/4 Students are sent out into the world able..to tell heroic couplets from blank verse and elegiac stanzas. 2009 A. Grossman True-love 157 ‘The Broken Tower’..consists of ten elegiac stanzas. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2014; most recently modified version published online June 2022). < adj.n.a1586
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