Definition of "elegiac" []

• Of, relating to, or involving elegy or mourning or expressing sorrow for that which is irrecoverably past: an elegiac lament for youthful ideals. (adjective)
• Of or composed in elegiac couplets. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It is in Latin elegiac verse, and as being directed against ambition and discontent may be compared with the first satire of Horace."
• "Othos; six comedies, the praises of the Blessed Virgin, and St. Dennis in elegiac verse, with other works."
• "His surviving poems are all written in elegiac couplets, with the exception of the Metamorphoses, which is in hexameters."