fugue
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.
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.
Origin of fugue
1Other words from fugue
- fugue·like, adjective
Words Nearby fugue
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use fugue in a sentence
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.
The best things to do in the D.C. area the week of Oct. 28 to Nov. 4 | Fritz Hahn, Anying Guo, Stephanie Williams, Haben Kelati, Adele Chapin | October 28, 2021 | Washington PostNext, 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.
An AI finished Beethoven’s final symphony. But is it good? | Ahmed Elgammal/The Conversation | September 26, 2021 | Popular-ScienceYears earlier, Elena fell into a possible fugue state and has no memory of six months of her life.
Amanda Dennis’s ‘Her Here’ is a spellbinding existential thriller | Lauren LeBlanc | March 11, 2021 | Washington PostBy day, she muddles through in a depressive fugue, for reasons the movie will make clear later.
Promising Young Woman Starts with a Cathartic Blast. Then It Gets Bogged Down With Cynicism | Stephanie Zacharek | January 15, 2021 | TimeResearch has shown that a fugue state may be induced by intensely emotional or stressful events.
Transient Global Amnesia: What Total Memory Loss Is Like | Dr. Anand Veeravagu, MD | July 28, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
Green, however, said: “They can no more be separated than the voices of a fugue.”
Halloween Read: Thomas Browne’s Eerie Premonition of His Burial | Stefan Beck | October 30, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTThe 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.
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.
Charles Baudelaire, His Life | Thophile GautierI went down to the little parlor and tried the fugue on the piano, but could not remember the portion in question.
Piano Mastery | Harriette BrowerThe music of the four-part fugue entered into him more deeply, and he began to hum its little phrases.
The Longest Journey | E. M. ForsterBut like the theme in a fugue this loud tranquil recurrent need to Express me transcends them all.
I, Mary MacLane | Mary MacLaneIt is customary to describe the music as a fugue, and, if that is so, no more unfugue-like fugue was ever penned.
Richard Wagner | John F. Runciman
British Dictionary definitions for fugue
/ (fjuːɡ) /
a musical form consisting essentially of a theme repeated a fifth above or a fourth below the continuing first statement
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
Origin of fugue
1Derived forms of fugue
- fuguelike, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Browse