Lament
A quotation whose work is to express grief rather than to argue or advise.
A lament is an utterance of sorrow given shape. It is one of the oldest attested literary forms — Sumerian city laments, the Hebrew book of Lamentations, Greek threnody, the Anglo-Saxon elegies — and its conventions are remarkably stable across cultures: address to the lost, a catalogue of what is gone, a turn toward the survivors.
Laments are quoted differently from other speech. Their power depends on rhythm and repetition rather than on compressed argument, so a lament excerpted to a single clause usually loses what made it work. This is why lament quotations in eulogies and memorials tend to run two or three lines rather than one.
In modern usage the word also covers non-literary grieving speech: a coach's line after a defeat, an obituary's closing sentence. The test is function, not register — if the sentence exists to register loss rather than to instruct, it is lament.
Common mistake: confusing lament with complaint. Complaint seeks remedy from someone; lament addresses a loss that no remedy reaches.
“How is the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!”
Keep reading the glossary
A speech of praise for someone who has died, often the source of widely-quoted lines.
A short text written in memory of a dead person — often inscribed on a tombstone.
A prolonged lamentation or bitter complaint, typically warning of moral or social decline.
A quotation inscribed on a grave marker to characterise the person beneath.