bagpipes played a haunting dirge at the funeral for the fallen leader

Recent Examples on the Web

Other environmental sounds, like the tolling bell, bring to mind noises that could practically be diegetic, like the distant dirge of a mission bell. Jeva Lange, TheWeek, "How Ennio Morricone won the West," 6 July 2020

By December, with many protesters exhausted after they were routed in a fiery campus siege, the singing sounded like a funeral dirge. Suzanne Sataline, The Atlantic, "The Challenge to China From Hong Kong's 'Sense of Country'," 21 May 2020

Last year’s meetings in Las Vegas were like an extravagant party with an empty dance floor and a funeral dirge droning in the background. Tyler Kepner, New York Times, "The Biggest Winner of the Winter Meetings? Scott Boras," 12 Dec. 2019

The dirge-like tempo speeds up and hurtles to a close, a runaway train charging into the black. Greg Kot, chicagotribune.com, "Sturgill Simpson review: ‘Sound & Fury’ aims to blow up speakers and country music boundaries," 26 Sep. 2019

On the way to the finale, Cats requires audiences to sit through slapstick numbers by Rebel Wilson and James Cordon (both playing cats whose main traits are their weight and laziness) and deeply serious dirge-like songs sung by Dench and McKellen. Tyler Coates, Wired, "Cats Is as Terrible as the Internet Guessed It Might Be," 19 Dec. 2019

Magdalene opens with something like a funeral dirge, an echoing hymnal over which her falsetto rings at an almost unbearably high register. Andrew R. Chow, Time, "The 10 Best Albums of 2019," 27 Nov. 2019

The only appropriate dance for this season is a dirge. Dan Wolken, USA TODAY, "Misery Index: Wisconsin won't be able to erase the ugly mark on its résumé after loss to Illinois," 20 Oct. 2019

The only sound comes from the loudspeakers: music, reportage in the morning, and poetry—hastily written dirges by many Soviet poets writing on cue. Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, "A Hypnotic but Contextless Portrait of Stalin’s Death and Its Aftermath," 30 Sep. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'dirge.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.