  This paper presents the chemical abundance analysis of a sample of 27 red
giant stars located in 4 popolous intermediate-age globular clusters in the
Large Magellanic Cloud, namely NGC 1651, 1783, 1978 and 2173. This analysis is
based on high-resolution (R ~ 47000) spectra obtained with the UVES@VLT
spectrograph. For each cluster we derived up to 20 abundance ratios sampling
the main chemical elemental groups, namely light odd-Z, alpha, iron-peak and
neutron-capture elements. All the analysed abundance patterns behave similarly
in the 4 clusters and also show negligible star-to-star scatter within each
cluster. We find [Fe/H]=-0.30+-0.03, -0.35+-0.02, -0.38+-0.02 and -0.51+-0.03
dex for NGC 1651, 1783, 1978 and 2173, respectively. The measurement of light
odd-Z nuclei gives slightly subsolar [Na/Fe] and a more significant [Al/Fe]
depletion (~ -0.50 dex). The [alpha / Fe] abundance ratios are nearly solar,
while the iron-peak elements well trace that one of the iron. s-process
elements behave in a peculiar way: light s-elements give subsolar [Y/Fe] and
[Zr/Fe] abundance ratios, while heavy s-elements give enhanced [Ba/Fe], [La/Fe]
and [Nd/Fe] with respect to the solar values. Also, the [Eu/Fe] abundance ratio
turns out to be enhanced (~ 0.4 dex).
