roundelay
Americannoun
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a song in which a phrase, line, or the like, is continually repeated.
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the music for such a song.
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a dance in a circle; round dance.
noun
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Also called: roundel. a slow medieval dance performed in a circle
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a song in which a line or phrase is repeated as a refrain
Etymology
Origin of roundelay
1565–75; alteration (influenced by lay 4 ) of Middle French rondelet, diminutive of rondel roundel
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.
In the end we are left with Agent Cooper and Laura Palmer, seemingly locked into a never-ending roundelay of repeating trauma.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
Man, that’s an ambition worth an endless roundelay of soulless mid-level convention venues, empty hotel rooms and backseat rides in SUVs sitting next to people telling you how many points you’re down in the polls.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2024
His story opens and closes with a bureaucratic roundelay that many travelers, including those who are not transporting traps or a puma, may find relatable.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 4, 2021
The movie begins as a buddy-cop procedural and a roundelay of working-class despair, then escalates slowly into a heist-gone-wrong thriller en route to a climactic face-off.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2019
Both are silent, as though listening to the plash of the oar-blades, or the roundelay of late singing birds on the river's bank.
From Gwen Wynn by Reid, Mayne
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.
