Meaning

(music) Any of various genres of single-movement musical pieces having lyrical and narrative elements..

Definitions by Sense

1. (music) Any of various genres of single-movement musical pieces having lyrical and narrative elements.
2. (poetry) A poem of one or more triplets of seven- or eight-line stanzas, each ending with the same line as refrain, and usually an envoi; more generally, any poem in stanzas of equal length.

Example Sentences

Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language […] his clerks […] understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there.

"Dead and gone!" as Andrew Lang re-echoes in a sweetly mournful ballade[…

Even a 10-minute Chopin ballade for piano, let alone Messiaen’s 75-minute “Turangalila Symphony,” tries to grapple with, activate and organize a relatively substantial span of time.

Word Forms

• ballades

Related Words

When Should You Use Ballade?

Use ballade when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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