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Elegiac

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(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

• Now that the federal government has lifted the nearly 20-year old ban on journalists documenting the return of a fallen U.S. soldier, you can expect to see, from time to time, elegiac pictures in the media that will serve as reminders of the ultimate sacrifice some Americans are making to keep us safe.

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

• this author saying: "Whenever I meet an Irish person, I cannot help asking them if they've seen the movie 'Michael Collins' starring Liam Neeson, especially the end--when the credits start to roll--as it contains some of the most elegiac film music I've ever heard."
• elegiac poetry; an elegiac speech, movie, or song
• 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
• on the morning of Sept. 11, 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

© 2009 V.J. Singal
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