Meaning

(historical) A round dance accompanied by singing..

Definitions by Sense

1. (historical) A round dance accompanied by singing.
2. A ballad or song of joy.
3. (architecture, obsolete) A small closet or enclosure built against the inner side of a window of a monastery's cloister, to sit in for study.
4. (intransitive, historical) To participate in a carol (a round dance accompanied by singing).
5. (intransitive) To sing in a joyful manner.
6. (intransitive) To sing carols; especially to sing Christmas carols in a group.
7. (transitive) To praise or celebrate in song.
8. (transitive) To sing (a song) cheerfully.

Example Sentences

The carol, a combination of dance, music and song performed by a group, has a parallel history [to the mystery plays]. Although it existed earlier as a secular form – the round dance of which St Hugh's biographer was reminded by the shafts at Lincoln – it seems to have been turned to pious uses from about 1350.

The humane mortals want their winter heere / No night is now with hymme or carroll bleſt; / Therefore the Moone (the gouerneſſe of floods) / Pale in her anger, waſhes all the aire; / That Rheumaticke diſeaſes do abound.

Oppos'd to her, on t' other Side, advance / The coſtly Feaſt, the Carol, and the Dance, / Minſtrels, Muſick, Poetry, and Play, / And Balls by Night, and Turnaments by Day.

The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout.

Carol, or Carrel. A little pew, or closet, in a cloister, to sit and read in. They were common in greater monasteries, as Duram, Gloucester, Kirkham in Yorkshire, &c.; and had their name from the carols, or sentences inscribed on the walls about them, which often were couplets in rhyme. [Carola, Low Latin.]

An exquisite south-east door is preserved; it is round-headed, of four orders, with a foliated label. A canopied carol or monk's seat, a Pointed crocketed arch within a square case, is seen beside it, succeeded on the south wall by an arcade of trefoiled arches with toothed mouldings.

You might see the townsmen and the ladies carolling in the squares, squires and serjans and young girls singing; there is no street and no house to be found there that is not adorned with hangings of gold and silk.

And when the ſtubborne ſtroke of ſtronger ſtounds, / Has ſomewhat ſlackt the tenor of thy ſtring; / Of loue and luſtihead tho maiſt thou ſing, / And carroll lowde, and leade the Millers rounde, [...]

Word Forms

• carols
• carrol
• carroll
• carrel
• caroling
• carolling
• caroled
• carolled

Synonyms for carol

Related Words

When Should You Use Carol?

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

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