Dictionary:
la·ment (lə-mĕnt')  |
[Middle English lementen, from Old French lamenter, from Latin lāmentārī, from lāmentum, lament.]
lamenter la·ment'er n.| Thesaurus: lament |
| Antonyms: lament |
Definition: complain
Antonyms: celebrate, compliment, laud, praise, rejoice
| Music Encyclopedia: Lament |
Term for a variety of musical and poetic forms related to mourning rites for the dead or ritual leave-taking. The domestic funeral lament, which goes back to antiquity, is still widely practised in some rural areas as an outlet of emotion and as part of the rites of transition. Most domestic laments take the form of alternating cries of grief (the ‘planctus’) and the framing of a message (the ‘discourse’). Laments are normally performed by women, either relatives of the dead person or women of prestige with a talent for keening. Their song usually has a narrow compass, often within five notes.
For particular kinds of lament, see Apothéose; Caoine ; Déploration; Dirge; Dump; Elegy; Lamento; Plainte; Planctus; Tombeau; and Threnody .
| Literary Dictionary: lament |
| Music: Lament |
A mournful piece, either meant to be played at a funeral, or to commemorate a death.
| Wikipedia: Lament |
A lament or lamentation is a song, poem, or piece of music expressing grief, regret, or mourning.
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Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments.[1] Laments are present in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and laments continued to be sung in elegiacs accompanied by the aulis in classical and Hellenistic Greece.[2] Lament elements figure in Beowulf, in the Hindu Vedas, and in ancient Near Eastern religious texts, including the Mesopotamian city laments such as the Lament for Ur and the Jewish Tanakh, which would later become the Christian Old Testament).
In many oral traditions, both early and modern, the lament has been a genre usually performed by women:[3] Batya Weinbaum made a case for the spontaneous lament of women chanters in the creation of the oral tradition that resulted in the Iliad[4] The material of lament, the "sound of trauma" is as much an element in the Book of Job as in the genre of pastoral elegy, such as Shelley's "Adonais" or Matthew Arnold's "Thyrsis".[5]
the Book of Lamentations or Lamentations of Jeremiah figures in the Old Testament. In art the Lamentation of Christ (under many closely variant terms) is a common subject from the Life of Christ, showing his dead body being mourned after the Crucifixion.
A heroine's lament is a conventional fixture of baroque opera seria, accompanied usually by strings alone, in descending tetrachords.[6] Because of their plangent cantabile melodic lines, evocatively free, non-strophic construction and adagio pace, operatic laments have remained vividly memorable soprano or mezzo-soprano arias even when separated from the emotional pathos of their operatic contexts. An early example is Ariadne's "Lasciatemi morire", which is the only survivor of Monteverdi's lost Arianna. Cavalli's operas extended the lamento formula, in numerous exemplars, of which Ciro's "Negatemi respiri" from Ciro is notable.[7] Other examples include Dido's lament, "When I am laid" (Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas), "Lascia ch'io pianga" (Georg Friedrich Handel, Rinaldo), "Cara mio ben" (Tomasso or Giuseppe Giordani). The lament continued to represent a musico-dramatic high point. In the context of opera buffa, the Countess's lament, "Dove sono" comes as a surprise to the audience of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, and in Rossini's Barber of Seville, Rosina's plaintive words at her apparent abandonment are followed, not by the expected lament aria, but by a vivid orchestral interlude of storm music. The heroine's lament remained a fixture in romantic opera, and the Marschallin's monologue in Act I of Der Rosenkavalier can be understood as a penetrating psychological lament.[8]
The purely instrumental lament is a common form in Pìobaireachd music for the Scottish bagpipes.
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| Translations: Lament |
Dansk (Danish)
n. - klage, sørgesang, klagesang, jammerklage
v. tr. - sørge over, begræde, beklage
v. intr. - jamre, klage sig
Nederlands (Dutch)
lamenteren, weeklagen, jammeren, (be)treuren, (be)wenen, weeklacht, klaaglied
Français (French)
n. - lamentation, pleurs, complainte, élégie
v. tr. - se lamenter, gémir, pleurer
v. intr. - se lamenter, gémir, pleurer
Deutsch (German)
v. - klagen
n. - Klage, Klagegesang
Ελληνική (Greek)
v. - θρηνώ
n. - θρήνος, μοιρολόι, ελεγεία
Italiano (Italian)
lamentarsi, lamento, elegia funebre
Português (Portuguese)
v. - lamentar
n. - lamento, lamentação
Русский (Russian)
плакать, сетовать, плач, элегия, похоронная песнь
Español (Spanish)
n. - lamento, queja, elegía
v. tr. - llorar, lamentar, deplorar
v. intr. - lamentarse, plañir
Svenska (Swedish)
v. - klaga, jämra (sig), beskärma sig, gråta, beklaga, sörja över
n. - vesaga, klagosång, klagovisa
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
悲叹, 恸哭, 悔恨, 哀悼
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 悲歎, 慟哭, 悔恨
v. tr. - 哀悼
v. intr. - 悔恨, 悲歎
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 슬픔, 한탄 , 애가, 푸념
v. tr. - 슬퍼하다, 애석해 하다
v. intr. - 애도하다 , 슬퍼하다
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 悲嘆, 哀歌, 悲しみ
v. - 嘆く, 悲しむ, 残念に思う
العربيه (Arabic)
(فعل) يعول, ينوح, يندب, يرثي, يتفجع (الاسم) عويل, نواح, تفجع, مرثاة
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - זעקה, קינה, בכי
v. tr. - קונן
v. intr. - התאבל על
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 | rejoice |
| epicedium |
| Lament for Art O'Leary |
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Antonyms. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Literary Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Music. © 2003 The Austin Symphony. All Rights Reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lament". Read more |
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| Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |
