Aubade

//əʊˈbɑːd// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A poem or song evoking or greeting the dawn or early morning.

    "And there he lingered till the crowing cock, / The Alectryon of the farmyard and the flock, / Sang his aubade with lusty voice and clear, / To tell the sleeping world that dawn was near."

  2. 2
    A poem or song evoking or greeting the dawn or early morning.; A morning love song, or a song of lovers parting in the morning. specifically
  3. 3
    A concert held at dawn or in the morning, especially outdoors.

Example

More examples

"And there he lingered till the crowing cock, / The Alectryon of the farmyard and the flock, / Sang his aubade with lusty voice and clear, / To tell the sleeping world that dawn was near."

Etymology

PIE word *albʰós Borrowed from French aubade, from Old French albade, from Old Spanish albada (“musical or poetic composition to be performed in the morning”), from alba (“dawn”), from Vulgar Latin *alba (“dawn; sunrise”), from Latin albus (“bright, clear; white”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *albʰós (“white”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.