monody

plural monodies

1. An ode, as in Greek drama, for a single voice, often specifically a mournful song or dirge.First known use 17th c.
2. Any poem mourning the death of someone; an elegy.First known use 17th c.
3. A monotonous or mournful noise.First known use 19th c.

   Stroke by stroke, the great familiar monody of that incomparable curfew rose and fell in the stillness.

   1911, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson

4. entertainmentA composition having a single melodic line.First known use 19th c.

   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, →OCLC, page 203