Definitions

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

  • noun A musical composition built on the alternation of a principal recurring theme and contrasting episodes.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In music: Same as round, 7 .
  • noun A setting of a rondeau or similar poem.
  • noun A work or movement in which a principal phrase or section is several times repeated in its original key in alternation with contrasted phrases or sections in the same or other keys.
  • noun A game of hazard played with small balls on a table.

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

  • noun (Mus.) A composition, vocal or instrumental, commonly of a lively, cheerful character, in which the first strain recurs after each of the other strains.
  • noun (Poetry) See Rondeau, 1.

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

  • noun music A musical composition, commonly of a lively, cheerful character, in which the first strain recurs after each of the other strains.
  • noun A small, disk-shaped piece of food, especially a single-serving dessert or small piece of candy.
  • noun botany A dark-skinned, hybrid grape officially of the species Vitis vinifera

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a musical form that is often the last movement of a sonata

Etymologies

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

[Italian rondò, from French rondeau, rondeau; see rondeau.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Italian rondo, from French rondeau.

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Examples

  • On his way to the gourbi, his mental occupation was a very laborious effort to put together what he was pleased to call a rondo, upon a model of versification all but obsolete.

    Off on a Comet 2003

  • The student should note particularly the problem of repetition and contrast (mentioned in Sec. 134) as here worked out, as the rondo was the first monophonic form in which this matter was at all satisfactorily solved, and its construction is especially interesting because it is readily seen to be one of the direct predecessors of the highest form of all -- the sonata.

    Music Notation and Terminology Karl Wilson Gehrkens 1928

  • On his way to the gourbi, his mental occupation was a very laborious effort to put together what he was pleased to call a rondo, upon a model of versification all but obsolete.

    Off on a Comet 1877

  • On his way to the gourbi, his mental occupation was a very laborious effort to put together what he was pleased to call a rondo, upon a model of versification all but obsolete.

    Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space Jules Verne 1866

  • The marker was a scrap of paper torn from the scribbling pad and on it, in Knighton's stylized 'rondo' handwriting, were written a few lines of verse.

    The Speaker Of Mandarin Rendell, Ruth, 1930- 1983

  • There is only one air, a kind of rondo in the second act, where she has an opportunity of sustaining her voice, and thus showing what she can do.

    The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart, Wolfgang A 1864

  • There is only one air, a kind of rondo in the second act, where she has an opportunity of sustaining her voice, and thus showing what she can do.

    The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Volume 01 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1773

  • But as just one of its many felicities, the rondo-like slow movement's steadily paced march theme is also eerily reminiscent of similar ones by the composer's other beloved predecessor, Franz Schubert.

    Rodney Punt: World Premiere by Peter Golub at Chamber Music Palisades Rodney Punt 2010

  • Xavi talks about the rondo – piggy in the middle – as the cornerstone of everything.

    Pep Guardiola the purist and pragmatist oiling Barcelona's machine 2011

  • Orozco-Estrada may have been too indulgent of her slow adagio, but her clear vision of the final rondo again underlined a real artist in the making.

    Vienna Tonkünstler/Andrés Orozco-Estrada – review 2011

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