Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A song or instrumental composition concerning, accompanying, or evoking daybreak.
  • noun A poem or song of or about lovers separating at dawn.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In troubadour and similar music, a song or piece to be performed in the open air in the early morning, usually addressed to some special person; a musical announcement of dawn. See serenade.
  • noun In modern music, a rarely used title for a short instrumental composition in lyric style.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An open air concert in the morning, as distinguished from an evening serenade; also, a pianoforte composition suggestive of morning.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A song or poem greeting or evoking the dawn.
  • noun A morning love song; a song of lovers parting in the morning.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French albade, from Old Provençal albada, from alba, dawn, aubade, from Latin, feminine of albus, white; see albho- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French, from Old French albade, from Latin albus ("white").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Cf. serenade

    December 28, 2007

  • an aubade

    August 18, 2009

  • aubade: a song or poem greeting the dawn.

    (see Philip Larkin's extraordinary poem of the same name)

    November 5, 2009

  • JM knows it's the early muso who gets the aubade!

    January 30, 2011