nenia

Borrowed from Latin nēnia.

nenia (plural nenias)

1. (Ancient Rome) A funeral song; an elegy.
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Honest Objects of Love”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:

     Nam vinci in amore turpissimum putant, not only living, but when their friends are dead, with tombs and monuments, nenias, epitaphs elegies, inscriptions, pyramids, obelisks, statues, images, pictures, histories, poems, annals, feasts, anniversaries, many ages after (as Plato's scholars did) they will parentare still, omit no good office that may tend to the preservation of their names, honours, and eternal memory.

   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Avignon”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume II (The Constitution), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book V (Parliament First):

     The corpse of L’Escuyer, stretched on a bier, the ghastly head girt with laurel, is borne through the streets; with many-voiced unmelodious Nenia; funeral-wail still deeper than it is loud!

   • 1901, M. P. Shiel, The Purple Cloud‎^[1]:

     And as I nodded, with forehead propped on my left hand, and the packet of pemmican cakes in my right, there was in my head, somehow, an old street-song of my childhood: and I groaned it sleepily, like coronachs and drear funereal nenias, dirging; and the packet beat time in my right hand, falling and raising, falling heavily and rising, in time.

• “nenia”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• -anine, Annie, inane

From neni- (negative correlative prefix) +‎ -a (correlative suffix of kind).

• IPA^(key): /neˈnia/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ia
• Hyphenation: ne‧ni‧a

nenia (accusative singular nenian, plural neniaj, accusative plural neniajn)

1. no kind of

Borrowed from Latin nēnia.

• IPA^(key): /ˈnɛ.nja/

nenia f (plural nenie)

1. dirge
2. wail

• nenia in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

• Ienna, inane

• naenia

Perhaps from Ancient Greek νηνία (nēnía).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈneː.ni.a]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈnɛː.ni.a]

nēnia f (genitive nēniae); first declension

1. a funeral song, dirge
2. a spell, incantation, enchantment

   Synonyms: carmen, cantiō, cantus, incantāmentum

3. a song of little consequence, ditty, tune, lullaby

   Synonyms: lallus, lallum

4. (in the plural) talk of little consequence, trifles, nonsense

   Synonyms: nūgae, nihil

   • 1st c. AD, Phaedrus, Poeta:

     POĒTA / Ioculāre tibi vidētur et sānē levī, / Dum nihil habēmus maius, calamō lūdimus, / Sed dīligenter intuēre hās nēniās / Quantam sub titulīs ūtilitātem reperiēs!

     Poet. / It may seem to you that it's just jests and trifles when I don't have anything better to do and play with the pen: but look at these trifles diligently; you will find so much usefulness under this pretext!

5. (Late Latin, Medieval Latin) a complaint, criticism

   Synonyms: querēla, cēnsūra

First-declension noun.

• → English: nenia
• → French: nénie
• → German: Nänie
• → Italian: nenia
• → Portuguese: nénia, nênia (Brazil)
• → Romanian: nenie
• → Spanish: nenia

• “nenia”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “nenia”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• nenia in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “nenia”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “nenia”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin