as in lament
a composition expressing one's grief over a loss the composer's cello concerto was composed as a moving threnody for his late wife

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of threnody His diary shrank to a litany of suffering and a threnody for what might have been. Sara Wheeler, WSJ, 25 Oct. 2018 Most critics acknowledged the score’s beautiful moments, especially Cleopatra’s death scene, in which the character’s plaintive lyrical lines are capped by a chilling choral threnody. Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 22 Dec. 2017 Threnody in X (FTF), Soda Pop (FTF), Corn Hives (FTF), Facts (FTF), Sophie Brown, WIRED, 9 Aug. 2011
Recent Examples of Synonyms for threnody
Noun
  • Apologies and laments and longing are woven throughout the album, but the speaker doesn’t ask anything of anyone that comes across as especially loud.
    Hanif Abdurraqib, New Yorker, 27 Aug. 2025
  • Beristain’s lament may sound like a song of the past, but eight years later, that rhythm is returning.
    Lluvia Gaucin, IndyStar, 26 Aug. 2025
Noun
  • This is her elegy, her memorial, her voice, her face.
    Sophie Monks Kaufman, IndieWire, 3 Sep. 2025
  • Not every elegy comes in the form of a dying fall.
    Rebecca Mead, New Yorker, 3 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • There’s nothing shiny and new to get excited about and so the apathy and dirge hasn’t been replaced.
    George Caulkin, New York Times, 13 Aug. 2025
  • Wylde seemed right at home recreating the droning opening dirge as the band slowed down into a stellar stoney groove throughout a standout moment Saturday night.
    Jim Ryan, Forbes.com, 26 July 2025
Noun
  • Like many of the 27 tracks on her Grammy-winning album of the year, her Cowboy Carter and Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit Tour is a requiem to Black artists who have helped shape country music and a reclamation of Americana for those who have been shut out.
    Megan Thomas, CNN Money, 27 June 2025
  • More than a century later, jazz pianist and composer Bobby West gives her what she was denied: a requiem.
    Philip Martin, Arkansas Online, 19 June 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Threnody.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/threnody. Accessed 10 Sep. 2025.

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