Other forms: dirges
A dirge is a slow mournful piece of music for the dead. A funeral dirge, sing a dirge, dirge-like and slow.
The figurative use is a complaint, since calling a song a dirge says it dragged. The word comes from the first word of the Latin office for the dead, which began Dirige, meaning direct.
1noundirgeA slow mournful piece of music for the dead.
“The band played a slow dirge as the coffin was carried out of the church.”
dirge is a song.
From Latin dirige, direct, the first word of the antiphon in the office for the dead.
Latin
dirige — steer, direct
Middle English
dirige
English, today
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. a doublet of dirige.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA