saraband
Americannoun
-
a slow, stately Spanish dance, especially of the 17th and 18th centuries, in triple meter, derived from a vigorous castanet dance.
-
a piece of music for or using the rhythm of this dance, usually forming one of the movements in the classical suite and following the courante.
Etymology
Origin of saraband
1610–20; < French sarabande < Spanish zarabanda, perhaps < Arabic sarband a kind of dance < Persian
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.
Yes, he wrote a saraband in its traditional three-quarter time, but it’s suspended, its feet hovering above the ground with a patient, forlorn, undanceable tune, played by Katia with sensitivity.
From New York Times • Apr. 28, 2022
On the outskirts of town, he looks back and sees his pursuers "in a limitless stream�flopping, hopping, croaking, bleating, surging inhumanly through the spectral moonlight in a grotesque, malignant saraband of fantastic nightmare."
From Time Magazine Archive
A saraband starts up, accompanied by a simulated harpsichord: Are the ghosts of vanished dancers being recalled?
From Time Magazine Archive
Getting an armistice took two more years of an excruciating saraband between envoys who may have loathed each other but had too much to lose to get mad.
From Time Magazine Archive
Somber figures danced in a saraband of shadows to a yearning melody of Tschaikovsky.
From Carnival by MacKenzie, Compton
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.
