roundelay
/ˈraʊndəleɪ
/noun literary
1A short, simple song with a refrain.I've passed girls singing choral roundelays on Holyrood Road....
- They sat next to each other, face-to face, in the background, a roundelay of harp music playing softly.
- Metz's new arrangement focuses on ensembles supporting the soloists, and a concluding sixteen-bar roundelay with piano exchanges between clarinet, saxophone, trombone, and drums.
1.1A circle dance.Many felt the director did just that with this film, a clever but routine roundelay of British aristocracy and murder....
- The film is a roundelay of unfulfilled desires: Frances is a beautiful woman, now dying, who wants to heal the emotional damage she's left in her wake.
- There is a comic roundelay that makes sense on its face, but if you think about it for a second, you realize how forced and unreal it is.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French rondelet, from rondel (see rondel). The change in the ending was due to association with the final syllable of virelay.