elegy

英文词源

elegy

elegy: [16] Greek élegos originally signified simply ‘song’ (Aristophanes, for example, used it for the song of a nightingale in his play Birds). It is not clear where it came from, although it has been speculated that the Greeks may have borrowed it from the Phrygians, an Indo- European people of western and central Asia Minor, and that originally it denoted ‘flute song’ (the long-held derivation from Greek e e légein ‘cry woe! woe!’ is not tenable). Later on it came to mean specifically ‘song of mourning’, and its adjective derivative elegeíā passed as a noun via Latin and French into English.

elegy (n.)

1510s, from Middle French elegie, from Latin elegia, from Greek elegeia ode "an elegaic song," from elegeia, fem. of elegeios "elegaic," from elegos "poem or song of lament," later "poem written in elegiac verse," which is of uncertain origin, perhaps from a Phrygian word. Related: Elegiast.