roundelay

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Pronunciation

• (British) IPA: /ˌɹaʊndɪˈleɪ/
• (GA) IPA: /ˌɹaʊndəˈleɪ/

Noun

roundelay (plural roundelays)

1. (music) A poem or song having a line or phrase repeated at regular intervals.
   • 1579, Edmund Spenser, Perigot and Willie's Roundelay published in The Shepheardes Calender, republished in 1907, William Stanley Braithwaite, ed., The Book of Elizabethan Verse.

     It fell upon a holly eve,

     Hey ho, hollidaye!

     When holly fathers wont to shrieve,

     Now gynneth this roundelay.

   • 1830, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Song - The Owl published in Poems, Chiefly Lyrical

     When merry milkmaids click the latch

     And rarely smells the new-mown hay,

     And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch

     Twice or thrice his roundelay,

     Twice or thrice his roundelay;

     Alone and warming his five wits,

     The white owl in the belfry sits.

   • 1871, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King: The Last Tournament published in Contemporary Review

     "Ay, fool," said Tristram, "but 'tis eating dry

     To dance without a catch, a roundelay

     To dance to." Then he twangled on his harp,

     And while he twangled little Dagonet stood

     Quiet as any water-sodden log

     Stay'd in the wandering warble of a brook;...

   • 1903, Howard Pyle, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Part II, Chapter First, page 61.

     For then the little birds do sing their sweetest song, all joining in one joyous medley, whereof one may scarce tell one note from another, so multitudinous is that pretty roundelay;...

2. A dance in a circle.
3. Anything having a round form; a roundel.

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