a. and sb. 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. W. 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, I. vii. § 17. 114. 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. Most eminent was that much lamented Dr. Donne; of whom an ingenious friend thus in his Elegiack knell: [etc.].
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. sb. † 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 Elegiaco-.
1832. Carlyle, in Fraser’s Mag., V. 255. We named Rousseau’s Confessions an elegiaco-didactic Poem.
