sb. Forms: 5–6 trene, 7 threen, 6– threne. [ad. Gr. θρῆνος funeral lament. So obs. F. thrène (1526 in Godef., Compl.).] A song of lamentation; a dirge, threnody; formerly spec. (in pl.) the Lamentations of Jeremiah (LXX θρῆνοι Ἰερεμίου, Vulgate Threni).

1

1432–50.  trans. Higden (Rolls), III. 85. The seide Ieremy … made also the trenes, that is to say, the lamentaciones.

2

1493.  Festivall (W. de W., 1515), 7. Ye paynfull deth of our sauyour … of the whiche is made mencyon in the fyrst chapytre of Trenys.

3

1593.  Southwell, St. Peter’s Compl., 2. My thrones an endlesse Alphabet doe finde.

4

1601.  Shaks., Phœnix & Turtle, 49. Whereupon it made this threne To the phœnix and the dove.

5

1651.  Bp. H. King, in Ussher’s Lett. (1686), 567. Some of these Psalms may serve as Threnes and Dirges to lament the Present Miseries.

6

1811.  Lamb, Guy Faux, Misc. Wks. (1871), 372. The tears and sad threnes of the matrons in universal mourning.

7

  So Threne v. [cf. Gr. θρηνεῖν], to compose or sing a threne; Threnetic, Threnetical adjs. [Gr. θρηνητικός], pertaining to a threnody; mournful.

8

1890.  Univ. Rev., Dec., 540. Her voice grew strangely low as she *threned.

9

1656.  Blount, Glossogr., *Threnetick … mournful, lamentable.

10

1850.  Mure, Hist. Lang. & Lit. Greece, III. 325. Threnetic odes are also ascribed to Sappho.

11

1829.  Carlyle, Misc., Voltaire (1872), II. 152. *Threnetical discourses.

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