Definition of "monody"

monody

/ˈmɒnədi/

noun
plural monodies
1. An ode, as in Greek drama, for a single voice, often specifically a mournful song or dirge.
2. Any poem mourning the death of someone; an elegy.
3. A monotonous or mournful noise.
  Quotations
  Stroke by stroke, the great familiar monody of that incomparable curfew rose and fell in the stillness.
  1911, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson
4. (music) A composition having a single melodic line.
  Quotations
  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.
  1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, page 203