How to Use elegiac in a Sentence

elegiac

adjective
Definition of elegiacnext
Synonyms for elegiacnext
  • The most elegiac work in the outdoor show could hardly have been simpler.
    — Esther Allen, The New York Review of Books, 15 June 2019
  • The title suggests the elegiac strain that runs through all 10 of these tracks (five with Williams’s vocals).
    — Jon Garelick, BostonGlobe.com, 27 June 2018
  • But that was not the only reason that there was an elegiac theme to Monday night.
    — John Koblin, New York Times, 16 Jan. 2024
  • The elegiac score by Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva is redolent with the buoyant melancholy of klezmer.
    — Charles McNulty, latimes.com, 11 June 2019
  • Now, four years later, Joe Biden's bid for the White House has taken on almost an elegiac air.
    — Susan Page, USA TODAY, 12 Feb. 2020
  • If anything, those elegiac spasms seemed to arrive too soon.
    — David Mermelstein, WSJ, 31 Oct. 2018
  • An old crane hovers above the Hudson, lending the retreat an elegiac feel.
    — Gary Shteyngart, Condé Nast Traveler, 30 Aug. 2023
  • This elegiac doc would make for a much better career coda.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 Aug. 2019
  • The scale of Alan Yang’s heartfelt debut feature is human, its tone elegiac.
    — Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, 10 Apr. 2020
  • There is much that is elegiac in this debut collection.
    — Frank Wilson, Philly.com, 19 Feb. 2018
  • The abiding tone is mournful yet steadfast, elegiac and full of gratitude.
    — Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 28 Aug. 2023
  • Filmed on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, the clip for Styles' elegiac single sees the singer soaring above lush oceanside landscapes before walking across the water.
    — Maeve McDermott, USA TODAY, 8 May 2017
  • The response has run the gamut between rank speculation and elegiac mourning.
    — Ann Hornaday, chicagotribune.com, 23 June 2017
  • That’s the case with the latest entry, a sometimes elegiac-feeling but warmly performed piece about how the fate of a North Dakota church hangs in the balance at Christmastime.
    — Lisa Deaderick, sandiegouniontribune.com, 22 Dec. 2017
  • Thankfully, The Rider doesn’t engage in the kind of elegiac allegories that stories about men and horses are so often guilty of.
    — David Sims, The Atlantic, 11 Apr. 2018
  • Give some time over to the quiet Americans on the way, including Winslow Homer’s elegiac painting of a sleigh disappearing over a hill.
    — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4 July 2018
  • Set largely in England, these ten elegiac tales depict loss of innocence, loss of memory, loss of love and, acutely, loss of life.
    — The Economist, 17 May 2018
  • Hoffs and Martin intertwined their voices, stripping the sweet lament to a gorgeously elegiac place.
    — Alex Suskind, EW.com, 22 Apr. 2020
  • As the details pile up, irony, both caustic and elegiac, flourishes in the knowledge gaps between characters.
    — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 22 Aug. 2023
  • The narrator, Pikelet, is voiced as an adult by the Australian writer Tim Winton, who wrote the novel on which this quiet, quietly elegiac movie is based.
    — New York Times, 31 May 2018
  • Its elegiac meanderings return time and time again to the figure of Carel Fabritius.
    — Becca Rothfeld, Washington Post, 28 June 2023
  • Most Black novels are elegiac mysteries about Quirke, a pathologist in 1950s Dublin.
    — Adam Woog, The Seattle Times, 2 June 2017
  • These elegiac images, and the accompanying stories and videos, show us what silence looks like.
    — Washington Post, 24 Mar. 2020
  • In the first, elegiac version of these scenes, Fox’s memories are bucolic, all soft pop and polo shirts, and her younger self is played by Jessica Sarah Flaum, a pretty young teen-ager.
    — Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker, 18 June 2018
  • The tone is elegiac, muffled, and yet curiously intense.
    — James Wood, The New Yorker, 31 May 2017
  • Hollinghurst’s narrative orbits around the disparate fates of a father and son, but contained within its epic scope is an elegiac portrait of the inexorable power of time.
    — Time Staff, Time, 11 June 2018
  • The language is more elegiac, almost mystical, though as precise as ever.
    — Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 5 Apr. 2020
  • Sciolino reaches the right elegiac note in her afterword.
    — Debra Bruno, Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2019
  • The poems are elegiac, and once again her followers may read this as personal elegy — which is only hinted at.
    — Carol Muske-Dukes, Washington Post, 2 Sep. 2023
  • Good idea, since the group has the chops to shine through, and the song -- written by East 17 member Tony Mortimer, at least in part about his brother's suicide -- is a stunner, the rare boy band ballad that could accurately be described as elegiac.
    — Billboard Staff, Billboard, 23 Apr. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'elegiac.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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