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 threnodyHis 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
These books can be read as comedies of cognitive dissonance or as melancholy elegies for the very possibility of closure.
—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
10 Dec. 2025
Public Theater Else Went’s epic elegy to the great loves and losses of high school captured a certain moment — the precarious turn of the millennium — and a certain kind of teenage terror and heartache with precision and compassion.
Swedish singer-composer Anna von Hausswolff, whose cathedral melodies, intense vocals and doom-laden dirges share much in common with Nordic heavy-metal culture, specializes in mystery and grandiosity.
—
Bob Gendron,
Chicago Tribune,
9 Jan. 2026
Thanksgiving can be delightful or draining, a festive feast or a dispiriting dirge.
—
Kevin Jacobsen,
Entertainment Weekly,
27 Nov. 2025
Share