Plural of elegy; poems or musical compositions expressing sorrow, lamentation, or reflective sadness, often written as a tribute to someone deceased.
From elegy (Greek elegeia, from elegoi meaning 'mournful song'). The Greek original referred to poems in a specific meter, and the meaning expanded to include any mournful verse in English.
Some of the most beautiful poems in English are elegies—like Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard—because there's something about sadness that makes people write their most thoughtful, careful lines.
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