Ballade
noun ·2 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any of various genres of single-movement musical pieces having lyrical and narrative elements.
"Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language […] his clerks […] understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there."
- 2 a poem consisting of 3 stanzas and an envoy wordnet
- 3 A poem of one or more triplets of seven- or eight-line stanzas, each ending with the same line as refrain, and usually an envoi; more generally, any poem in stanzas of equal length.
Example
More examples"Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language […] his clerks […] understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there."
Etymology
Borrowed from French ballade. Doublet of ballad.
Related phrases
More for "ballade"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.