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

Derived Forms

• ˈfugueˌlike, adjective

Other Words From

• fugue·like 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

Try to avoid shivering as you listen to Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” — a stormy organ piece that’s become standard for horror films.

From Washington Post

Next, because the continuation of a phrase also needs to follow a certain musical form, whether it’s a scherzo, trio or fugue, the AI needed to learn Beethoven’s process for developing these forms.

From Popular-Science

Years earlier, Elena fell into a possible fugue state and has no memory of six months of her life.

From Washington Post

By day, she muddles through in a depressive fugue, for reasons the movie will make clear later.

From Time

Research has shown that a fugue state may be induced by intensely emotional or stressful events.

From The Daily Beast

Green, however, said: “They can no more be separated than the voices of a fugue.”

From The Daily Beast

The guy showed up with a giant bottle of OxyContin that he had stolen from his mother and I slipped right back into a fugue state.

From The Daily Beast

The sonnet is a sort of poetical fugue in which the theme ought to pass and repass until its final resolution in a given form.

From Project Gutenberg

I went down to the little parlor and tried the fugue on the piano, but could not remember the portion in question.

From Project Gutenberg

The music of the four-part fugue entered into him more deeply, and he began to hum its little phrases.

From Project Gutenberg

But like the theme in a fugue this loud tranquil recurrent need to Express me transcends them all.

From Project Gutenberg

It is customary to describe the music as a fugue, and, if that is so, no more unfugue-like fugue was ever penned.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• exodus