fugue

[fyoog]

noun

1. Music.,  a polyphonic composition based upon one, two, or more themes, which are enunciated by several voices or parts in turn, subjected to contrapuntal treatment, and gradually built up into a complex form having somewhat distinct divisions or stages of development and a marked climax at the end.

2. Psychiatry.,  a period during which a person experiences loss of memory, often begins a new life, and, upon recovery, remembers nothing of the amnesic phase.

fugue

/ fjuːɡ /

noun

1. a musical form consisting essentially of a theme repeated a fifth above or a fourth below the continuing first statement

2. psychiatry a dreamlike altered state of consciousness, lasting from a few hours to several days, during which a person loses his or her memory for his or her previous life and often wanders away from home

Other Word Forms

• fuguelike adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of fugue¹

First recorded in 1590–1600; from French, from Italian fuga, from Latin: “flight”

Word History and Origins

Origin of fugue¹

C16: from French, from Italian fuga , from Latin: a running away, flight

Example Sentences

In 2023, he released a new album, “Seven Psalms,” an elliptical, gracious invocation for the arc of his life, drawing on biblical imagery and intertwined guitar fugues.

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With every passing episode, Carrie slips further into her fugue state, becoming more difficult to reach.

Read more on Salon

That time spent getting the headboard, for example, was frankly spent in a sort of grim fugue state, wordlessly drifting from place to place in exhausted resignation.

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More than 100 renderings by artists as grand as David Hockney delivered fugue variants in form and material.

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He started playing piano at the age of two and, at just 17, gave a remarkable two-and-a-half-hour concert featuring the 24 preludes and fugues by composer Dmitri Shostakovich.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• exodus