What's the difference between elegiac and lament?

Elegiac


Definition:

  • (a.) Belonging to elegy, or written in elegiacs; plaintive; expressing sorrow or lamentation; as, an elegiac lay; elegiac strains.
  • (a.) Used in elegies; as, elegiac verse; the elegiac distich or couplet, consisting of a dactylic hexameter and pentameter.
  • (n.) Elegiac verse.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The novel's "elegiac strain lifts a personal story into a more intriguing one .
  • (2) He has taken various elements of the war, and translated their brutality into elegiac works, as with Freedom Qashoush Symphony, a delicate song which starts with rattled off gunfire, the symphony culminates in an urgent instrumental cry of freedom, inspired by Ibrahim al-Qashoush, an early symbol of rebel martyrdom.
  • (3) But recounting the story of one of the key experiences of European integration, the painter and decorator sounded elegiac, as if describing not current realities but those of a lamented past.
  • (4) The book partakes of the elegiac long before, even, the wrenching and brief final chapter, which in that distinctive calm prose acknowledges pain, the death that is coming, the fears of that death, and the therapeutic nature of what we have just read.
  • (5) Though the first Orange prize was not awarded until 1996, when the Canadian poet Anne Michaels won it for her elegiac Holocaust novel Fugitive Pieces , the founding committee celebrated its 20th birthday this year.
  • (6) A lament for the failed ideals of a group of 1960s Cambridge graduates who all too quickly swap their literary dreams for coffee table books and hack journalism, the play was an elegiac threnody for soiled friendship and a descent from intellectual rigour and seriousness to philistinism.
  • (7) Parking is near the elegiac ruins of Tintern Abbey, and from there one embarks upon a digestible but heart thumping climb up to the Devil's Pulpit, a rocky outcrop, affording fantastic views, where the evil doer himself supposedly used to preach temptation to the industrious monks scurrying below.
  • (8) The main thing that struck a chord was not the profligacy of supermarkets but the elegiac decay of the bagged salad: more than two-thirds of it thrown out, half by customers, half by stores.
  • (9) This footage of the remaining “red cars” (as the Pacific Electric’s fleet was commonly known) strikes an elegiac tone, especially to modern Angelenos.
  • (10) – elegiac, melodic, free from lyrics about shopping.
  • (11) Glue recycles some elements of Thorne’s past triumphs: the on-point indie soundtrack, the elegiac “last gang in town” feel, the tabloid-troubling teenage misdemeanours.
  • (12) For a poet to choose to document the moment of loss after finishing a novel may hint at mock-elegiac intentions.
  • (13) The elegiac mood around Mandela suggested that South Africans still find it easier to remember the long walk to freedom than to embark on a new journey.
  • (14) We in Afghanistan are suffering from the ugly side of globalisation, whether it is drugs, whether it is criminal networks or terrorism.” It is Cameron’s eighth trip as prime minister, and has an elegiac quality, even though it is a conflict he inherited and never wholly embraced.
  • (15) This corner of Berlin, remembered to such elegiac effect in Bowie's new work, is brighter, more prosperous and more efficient.
  • (16) Anderson told Screen International that it charts a watershed moment, narcotics-wise: “It’s that idea that when you’re smoking weed everything is OK, but as soon as heroin comes in everything is changed and everything is fucked, and that’s sad.” It’s more troubled and elegiac than Pynchon’s novel even , with less daffy musical interludes, more insistent harking-back to a lost Californian utopia – expressed through Doc’s search for his vanished “old lady” Shasta Fay Hepworth.
  • (17) In other ways excellent, the New York Times' piece had an elegiac tone, conveyed by the headline How the US Lost Out on iPhone Work .
  • (18) Rowan Williams , the Archbishop of Canterbury, in an elegiac, filmic farewell to the building – "a purpose-built factory for prayer" – and his job, is seen wandering through the enormous space from attics to crypts, turning the whole space into a valedictory sermon.
  • (19) Radiohead's much-trumpeted new single, their first in four years, a beautiful, intricately-wrought mesh of complex time signatures, keening vocals, elegiac strings and subtly disturbing audio effects called Pyramid Song, has been beaten to number one by Do You Really Like It?, by DJ Pied Piper and the Master of Ceremonies - perhaps the most unrepentantly stupid dance record since Jive Bunny hung up his tracksuit.

Lament


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To express or feel sorrow; to weep or wail; to mourn.
  • (v. t.) To mourn for; to bemoan; to bewail.
  • (v.) Grief or sorrow expressed in complaints or cries; lamentation; a wailing; a moaning; a weeping.
  • (v.) An elegy or mournful ballad, or the like.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Foster has long admired the speed with which these were built, and laments how Britain has dithered about London's airports.
  • (2) The screen-printing evening is taking place in Bushwick, an area known for – or lamented as – being the hippest part of Brooklyn.
  • (3) The debates and the campaign are increasingly covered as entertainment,” Rubio said, lamenting the networks’ hunt for ratings.
  • (4) Prior to the constitutional reform bill being introduced last July, Mandelson had lamented in an interview with the Financial Times that it was "not legally possible" for him to stand again as an MP.
  • (5) In an interview with the Qingdao Morning Post, one man lamented how in recent years his wife had frittered away 130,000 yuan (£13,500) of their hard-earned savings on Double Eleven purchases – thus dashing their dreams of buying a new home.
  • (6) If peerages are in effect being sold, the academics argue, “these could be thought of as the ‘average price’ per party.” Former Liberal Democrat peer, Matthew Oakeshott, who on leaving the Lords in May last year lamented that his efforts to uncover cash-for-honours deals across the parties had failed, told the Observer that the case against the system, and the parties, was now compelling.
  • (7) Alongside that political failing is a lamentable failure of the police command culture.
  • (8) Calling on Israel to “break with its lamentable track record” and hold wrongdoers responsible, the hard-hitting report commissioned by the UN human rights council lays most of the blame for Israel’s suspected violations at the feet of the country’s political and military leadership.
  • (9) He also expresses his lament that Australia’s $46 million bid, which earned one vote as the World Cup was controversially awarded to Qatar, never stood a chance.
  • (10) Farah addressed the media in Birmingham on Saturday, lamenting his name being “dragged through the mud” because of his links to Salazar, despite no allegations of wrongdoing against him personally.
  • (11) Although that guarantee is traditionally understood to prohibit intentional discrimination under existing laws, equal protection does not end there … to know the history of our nation is to understand its long and lamentable record of stymieing the right of racial minorities to participate in the political process.” Justice Elena Kagan, another of the court’s liberals, sat out of the case due to conflicts of interest.
  • (12) It's music that defines compassion, lament, and loss, to which you can only surrender in moist-eyed wonder.
  • (13) Or you might find it rather sad that someone who spends a lot of their time lamenting how society's unrealistic beauty standards are used to control and oppress women is a victim of those same standards.
  • (14) But recounting the story of one of the key experiences of European integration, the painter and decorator sounded elegiac, as if describing not current realities but those of a lamented past.
  • (15) The deputy prime minister, Bülent Arinc, one of the co-founders of the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development party (AKP), made the comment while lamenting the moral decline of modern society.
  • (16) For veterans of the women's movement there may be something unnerving about hearing the familiar slogans from Tory mouths – a sense that, as a female columnist lamented recently of Mensch, these late converts are "the wrong kind" of feminists.
  • (17) Wenger, though, warmed to a familiar theme when he lamented the importance that is attached to incoming signings.
  • (18) Hollande vowed to tackle France's standing as the most pessimistic country in Europe , "perhaps in the world", lamenting: "There are countries at war who are more optimistic than us."
  • (19) On Twitter , Wade lamented what he called another “act of senseless gun violence” which meant “4 kids lost their mom for NO REASON”.
  • (20) "We didn't make any mistakes today," Poyet lamented.