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View synonyms for villanelle

villanelle

[ vil-uh-nel ]

noun

, Prosody.
  1. a short poem of fixed form, written in tercets, usually five in number, followed by a final quatrain, all being based on two rhymes.


villanelle

/ ˌvɪləˈnɛl /

noun

  1. a verse form of French origin consisting of 19 lines arranged in five tercets and a quatrain. The first and third lines of the first tercet recur alternately at the end of each subsequent tercet and both together at the end of the quatrain
“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


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Word History and Origins

Origin of villanelle1

1580–90; < French < Italian; villanella, -elle
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Word History and Origins

Origin of villanelle1

C16: from French, from Italian villanella
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Example Sentences

We love a good sonnet, acrostic or villanelle.

Elizabeth Bishop’s wrenching villanelle, “One Art,” can be seen this way.

In “Missing Dates,” a haunting villanelle about helpless love and despair, William Empson writes: “Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills./ The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.”

Her own verse often drew on classical forms such as the villanelle, sestina, tritina and sonnet, and sometimes incorporated references to ancient mythology and medieval legend.

“It was almost like working within a received form, like a sonnet or a villanelle, to write into the context of the script,” he said.

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villanellaVillanovan