bolero
Americannoun
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a lively Spanish dance in triple meter.
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the music for this dance.
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a jacket ending above or at the waistline, with or without collar, lapel, and sleeves, worn open in front.
noun
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a Spanish dance, often accompanied by the guitar and castanets, usually in triple time
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a piece of music composed for or in the rhythm of this dance
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a kind of short jacket not reaching the waist, with or without sleeves and open at the front: worn by men in Spain and by women elsewhere
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of bolero
Borrowed into English from Spanish around 1780–90
Explanation
A bolero is a type of quick, lively Spanish dance. It's also a short jacket worn mainly by women. You could dance a bolero in a bolero, because this word refers to both clothes and music. The kind of bolero you wear is a short jacket that just about comes down to the waist. A bolero is most often worn by women: except in Spain, where men wear it too. The dance is a quick-paced type of music that you could do to Ravel's famous piece, also called Bolero. Both the music and the jacket come from Spain.
Vocabulary lists containing bolero
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Thirty-six dancers with raised arms glide slowly forward as they encircle their prey, a lone figure on a red table in a climactic scene from Ravel's "Bolero" choreographed by Maurice Bejart.
From Barron's • Feb. 25, 2026
Torvill and Dean won gold at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo with perfect marks for an instantly iconic performance set to Maurice Ravel's Bolero.
From BBC • Dec. 29, 2025
He’s the son of Thanh Tuyen, a Vietnamese singer whose trademark Bolero songs were popular during the war.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 19, 2024
Where, for Bolero, they had collected nine perfect sixes for artistic impression, they managed just one in Lillehammer.
From BBC • Feb. 13, 2024
The theme is not developed but simply grows in volume like Ravel’s Bolero; it is succeeded by a slow melodic passage that suggests a chant for the war's dead.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
