Elegiac

(pronounced el-uh-jy-uk or ih-lee-jee-ak) adjective

Definition

1. of, appropriate for, or involving an elegy. 2. mournful or melancholy; expressing sorrow (for something permanently or irremediably past or lost).

Main Example

For this author, who has witnessed domestic violence since childhood, perhaps no story is more melancholic than that of Minerva Cisneros, a 30-year-old mother of three in Ft. Worth, who was killed by her common-law husband on Christmas morning in 2015. Fifteen months earlier, after she had suffered a severe beating, Minerva, then eight months pregnant, was strongly encouraged , without success, by hospital workers and law enforcement to leave her husband, who was arrested but then released because she did not want to press charges. And when the ultimate tragedy did occur and police arrived, there was heartbreak all around: Minerva’s 14-month-old baby--alive--was lying next to her; the home was decorated for Christmas and still smelled of the briskets and the Mexican stew Minerva had cooked the night before; and under the family Christmas tree lay gifts that were to be opened later that morning. As you reflect on Minerva’s elegiac story, think of the over 2,000 women who have been killed by their intimate partners during the past decade, which is why it’s vital for someone to intervene before homicide occurs. For more on this story reported by Katie Zezima, click here.

Workplace Examples

Joel only spoke for about two or three minutes, but what he said about Mary--especially how she touched everyone who was privileged to know her--was so beautiful, so elegiac, that many in the audience were brought to tears.
If you like sad and melancholy music, I suggest you get hold of Gorecki’s Symphony #3. Also known as “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” it’s a series of three intensely elegiac laments. I believe the 1991 production, with Chicago’s Dawn Upshaw as soprano, has sold the most CDs ever of any single classical music recording.

Other Examples

ever since he watched the highly acclaimed 2017 film “Call Me by Your Name” last summer, this author rhapsodizing at every opportunity about its elegiac last scene which he regards as among the most brilliant pieces of movie acting and direction ever
elegiac poetry; elegiac film music; an elegiac speech, movie, or song; to wax elegiac about the one million species that scientists say are about to vanish
the 2008 book “Daring to Look” by Anne Whiston Spirn, which contains Dorothea Lange’s many elegiac pictures of the Great Depression, including “Migrant Mother” – a photograph regarded by many as being one of the most iconic images of those desperate years; the elegiac tone of Peter Coyote’s narration in Ken Burns’s six-part series on America’s national parks
on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, some of those who were hopelessly trapped in the burning towers of the World Trade Center leaving poignant and elegiac messages on their loved ones’ voice mail
the elegiac theme of Picasso’s famous painting “Guernica” which was inspired by the heavy bombing of that Basque town by German planes during the Spanish Civil War