dirge
UK/dɜːdʒ//dɝd͡ʒ/
dirge noun: a mournful poem or piece of music composed or performed as a memorial to a deceased person.
Noun
dirge (plural dirges)
- A mournful poem or piece of music composed or performed as a memorial to a deceased person.
- Therefore our ſometimes Siſter, now our Queen, / Th’ imperiall Ioyntreſſe of this warlike State, / Haue we, as ’twere, with a defeated ioy, / With one Auſpicious, and one Dropping eye, / With mirth in Funerall, and with Dirge in Marriage, / In equall Scale weighing Delight and Dole / Taken to Wife...c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
- While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits; I clasped my hands, and exclaimed aloud, “William, dear angel! this is thy funeral, this thy dirge!”1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter VII, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding...
- A song or piece of music that is considered too slow, bland or boring.
Verb
dirge (third-person singular simple present dirges, present participle dirging, simple past and past participle dirged)
- To sing dirges
dirge meaning in Urdu, Malayalam and Arabic
dirge in Urdu
- ماتم خوانی
dirge in Malayalam
- elegy, lament, threnody
- വിലാപഗാനം, വിലാപഗീതി, ശ്മശാനഗീതം, ചരമഗീതം, വിലാപകാവ്യം, ചരമശ്ലോകം
dirge in Arabic
- mournful poem or piece of music
- تَرْنِيمَة جَنَائِزِيَّة
Examples of dirge in a sentence
- It was as if the night sang dirges with clenched teeth.1878 January–December, Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, & Co....
- Over six sections – a prologue, a life-story, a dream-quest, a dirge, a masque and an epilogue – they meditate on their lives, their hopes, their losses, and on the human condition.2010 April 9, Glyn Maxwell, “WH Auden's ‘The Age of Anxiety’”, in The Guardian:
Synonyms of dirge
Forms of dirge
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | dirges |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | dirges |
| present participle | dirging |
| past participle | dirged |
| past | dirged |
Origin of dirge
From Middle English dirige, from Latin dirige (“steer, direct”), from the beginning of the first antiphon in matins for the dead, Dirige, Domine, deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam. Doublet of dirige.
Words formed from dirge
Words that rhyme with dirge
Questions about dirge
- What does dirge mean?
- Dirge means a mournful poem or piece of music composed or performed as a memorial to a deceased person.
- What is dirge in Urdu?
- Dirge in Urdu is ماتم خوانی. See Dirge meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use dirge in a sentence?
- It was as if the night sang dirges with clenched teeth.
- What part of speech is dirge?
- Dirge can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce dirge?
- Dirge is pronounced /dɜːdʒ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of dirge?
- The plural of dirge is dirges.
Words near dirge in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dirge (page history and authors); dirge (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dirge (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dirge.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dirge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dirge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.