fugue
/fjuːɡ
/noun
1 Music A contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts.Even though he had never even written a six-part fugue for keyboard, Bach immediately demurred....
- The following evening the King added a request for a six-part fugue by Bach on his theme.
- There are three solo pieces and a three-part fugue for clarinet, violin and cello.
2 Psychiatry A loss of awareness of one’s identity, often coupled with flight from one’s usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.Discussions of psychogenic fugue in standard psychiatric references offer suggestions of sodium amobarbital interviews or hypnosis....
- In a few cases a person entered a fugue state where he would ‘come to’ far from his quarters with no memory of how he got there.
- He'd heard about people in fugue states that black out of reality and do thing in a dream like state.
Origin
Late 16th century: from French, or from Italian fuga, from Latin fuga 'flight', related to fugere 'flee'.