Plaintive; melancholy

• Expressing poetic sorrow for something past
• Sad English stage actor denied rise to tour India
• Like a mournful poem
• Mournful English cricket side, by one account
• Legacies largely corrupt - sad
• Plaintive verse
• Plaintive, as a poem

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1580s, in reference to lines of verse of a particular construction, from Middle French élégiaque , from Latin elegiacus , from Greek elegeiakos , from eleigeia (see elegy ). In ancient Greece the verse form was used especially with mournful music. Meaning ...

WordNet Word definitions in WordNet
adj. resembling or characteristic of or appropriate to an elegy; "an elegiac poem on a friend's death" expressing sorrow often for something past; "an elegiac lament for youthful ideals"

Wikipedia Word definitions in Wikipedia
The adjective elegiac has two possible meanings. First, it can refer to something of, relating to, or involving, an elegy or something that expresses similar mournfulness or sorrow. Second, it can refer more specifically to poetry composed in the form of ...