vaudeville

American  

[vawd-vil, vohd-, vaw-duh-] / ˈvɔd vɪl, ˈvoʊd-, ˈvɔ də- /

noun

1. theatrical entertainment consisting of a number of individual performances, acts, or mixed numbers, as by comedians, singers, dancers, acrobats, and magicians.

2. a theatrical piece of light or amusing character, interspersed with songs and dances.

3. a satirical cabaret song.

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vaudeville British  

/ ˈvəʊdəvɪl, ˈvɔː- /

noun

1. Brit name: music hall.  variety entertainment consisting of short acts such as acrobatic turns, song-and-dance routines, animal acts, etc, popular esp in the early 20th century

2. a light or comic theatrical piece interspersed with songs and dances

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vaudeville Cultural  

1. Light theatrical entertainment, popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, consisting of a succession of short acts. A vaudeville show usually included comedians, singers, dancers, jugglers, trained animals, magicians, and the like.

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Etymology

Origin of vaudeville

1730–40; < French, shortened alteration of Middle French chanson du vau de Vire “song of the vale ( def. ) of Vire,” a valley of Calvados, France, noted for satirical folksongs

Explanation

Vaudeville is a type of entertainment that mixes comedy and music in a variety show. Originally, a vaudeville was a popular song satirizing current events. Eventually, it came to mean a type of variety show that mixed comedy and music. Vaudeville, or "music hall," was popular between the end of the 19th- and the beginning of the 20th century. Vaudeville performers were multi-talented, because they might have to tell a joke one minute, dance the next, and then sing. The word vaudeville comes from the French phrase voix de ville, "voice of the city."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

vaudeville

He was playing, as they say in vaudeville, to a different "house".

From BBC ● Mar. 7, 2026

Stewart purchased and is restoring the Highland Theatre, a cultural landmark that once hosted vaudeville acts.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2026

These would influence the American musical, but also shaping the genre were homegrown entertainments—the minstrel show, the revues of Florenz Ziegfeld, vaudeville and burlesque.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026

For all its verbal vaudeville, though, this holiday pageant occasionally hints at Thomas’s abiding theme, death.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 19, 2025

She had a wonderful memory of journeying to a strange part of Brooklyn to see the great Sarah Bernhardt in a one-act play in a Keith vaudeville house.

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith