Definitions for "Elegiac"
Used in elegies; as, elegiac verse; the elegiac distich or couplet, consisting of a dactylic hexameter and pentameter.
In classical prosody, verses written in elegiac meter, i.e., dactylic hexameter couplets, with the second line of each couplet having only an unaccented syllable in the third and sixth feet; also, of or relating to the period in which elegies written in such couplets flourished, about the 7th century BC; also, relating to an elegy.
Elegiac refers either to those compositions that are like elegies or to a specific poetic meter used in Classical elegies. The Classical elegiac meter has two lines, making it a couplet: a line of dactylic hexameter, followed by a line of dactylic pentameter. Because the hexameter line is in the same meter as epic poetry, and because the elegiac form was always considered lower style than epic, elegists frequently wrote with epic in mind and positioned themselves in relation to epic.
Belonging to elegy, or written in elegiacs; plaintive; expressing sorrow or lamentation; as, an elegiac lay; elegiac strains.
expressing sorrow often for something past; "an elegiac lament for youthful ideals"
resembling or characteristic of or appropriate to an elegy; "an elegiac poem on a friend's death"