bourrée
Americannoun
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an old French and Spanish dance, somewhat like a gavotte.
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the music for it.
noun
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a traditional French dance in fast duple time, resembling a gavotte
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a piece of music composed in the rhythm of this dance
Etymology
Origin of bourrée
1700–10; < French: literally, bundle of brushwood, originally, the twigs with which the bundle was stuffed (the dance may once have been done around brushwood bonfires); noun use of past participle (feminine) of bourrer to stuff, fill, verbal derivative of bourre hair, fluff < Late Latin burra wool, coarse fabric
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.
“That’s your pas de bourrée, your pas de gavotte.”
From New York Times • Mar. 10, 2023
This preteen dance troupe will pas de bourrée for the last time.
From New York Times • Jun. 21, 2018
For the finale, we performed a pas de bourrée, glissade and grand jete.
From Washington Post • Nov. 8, 2017
One by one, they re-enter the stage; the first, Cassie Mey, performs bourrée steps on demi-point as her arms rise and fall behind her back like wings.
From New York Times • Oct. 27, 2012
A little higher, and I passed a pair of men in a tree with pruning-hooks, and one of them was singing the music of a bourrée.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 1 (of 25) by Lang, Andrew
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.
