villanella
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of villanella
1590–1600; < Italian, feminine of villanello rural, rustic, equivalent to villan ( o ) peasant, boor ( see villain) + -ello -ish
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.
The confines of a structure make your brain work in a different way: How do I get this idea across in a sonnet or a villanelle?
From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2026
For my first experiment, I had the A.I. write a villanelle, a rather difficult poetic form, about the death of a pet gerbil.
From Slate ● Dec. 13, 2022
Elizabeth Bishop’s wrenching villanelle, “One Art,” can be seen this way.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 11, 2020
This is the distinction Elizabeth Bishop illuminates, by pretending to elide it, in her villanelle “One Art,” perhaps the most famous reckoning with loss in all of literature.
From The New Yorker ● Feb. 5, 2017
At the moment, he was attempting a villanelle, a poetic form more complex than even the most complicated dance step.
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
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.
