monody
English
editEtymology
editFrom Latin monodia, from Ancient Greek μονῳδία (monōidía).
Pronunciation
editNoun
editmonody (plural monodies)
- An ode, as in Greek drama, for a single voice, often specifically a mournful song or dirge. [from 17th c.]
- Any poem mourning the death of someone; an elegy. [from 17th c.]
- A monotonous or mournful noise. [from 19th c.]
- 1911, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson:
- Stroke by stroke, the great familiar monody of that incomparable curfew rose and fell in the stillness.
- (music) A composition having a single melodic line. [from 19th c.]
- 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 203:
- All directions in life were blocked to him. He could not think, he could not sleep, his heart thudded to a deadening monody of fear. Fear that is itself the penalty of all things feared.