Legacies largely corrupt - sad

• Like Berg's "Violin Concerto"
• Like funeral dirges
• Like Shelley's "Adonais"
• Mournful English cricket side, by one account
• Plaintive, as a poem
• Plaintive; melancholy
• Like some of Thomas Gray's poetry

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"

The Collaborative International Dictionary Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Elegiac \E*le"gi*ac\ (?; 277), a. [L. elegiacus, Gr. ?: cf. F. Belonging to elegy, or written in elegiacs; plaintive; expressing sorrow or lamentation; as, an elegiac lay; elegiac strains. Elegiac griefs, and songs of love. --Mrs. Browning. Used in elegies; ...