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  1. galliard love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A spirited dance popular in France in the 16th and 17th centuries.
  2. n. The triple-time music for this dance.
  3. adj. Archaic Spirited; lively; gay.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Brisk; gay; lively; jaunty.
  2. n. A brisk, lively man; a gay, jaunty fellow: as, “Selden is a galliard,”
  3. n. A spirited dance for two dancers only, common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: one of the precursors of the minuet. Also called romanesca.
  4. n. Music written for such a dance, or in its rhythm, which is triple and emphatic, but not rapid.
  5. n. A term used in northern England for a sandstone or grit of particularly close and uniform texture.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A lively dance, popular in 16th- and 17th-century Europe
  2. n. music The triple-time music for this dance

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. obsolete Gay; brisk; active.
  2. n. obsolete A brisk, gay man.
  3. n. A gay, lively dance. Cf. gailliarde.

Etymologies

  1. Middle English gaillard, from Old French gaillart, probably of Celtic origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “On p. 64 Arbeau treats of the Lavolta ( 'high lavolt' of Shakespeare), which he says is a kind of galliard well known in Provence.”

    Shakespeare and Music With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries

  • “An omnivorous troubadour, he roves from Manchester libraries to Colombian villages to salvage musical traditions – with recordings that move from Berber beats to the raptures of a raga, from the thrilling stillness of an Armenian lament to the sprightliness of an Elizabethan galliard.”

    The Guardian: In praise of … Jordi Savall | Editorial

  • “Then she could hear him resume his walk through the room, and, as if his spirits had been somewhat relieved and elevated by the survey of his wardrobe, she could distinguish that at one turn he half recited a sonnet, at another half whistled a galliard, and at the third hummed a saraband.”

    The Monastery

  • “I will be answerable that this galliard meant but some”

    The Fair Maid of Perth

  • “Why, I can be a wild galliard in a corner as well as thou, man.”

    The Fair Maid of Perth

  • ““I think,” replied Morton, “that if the young galliard resemble a certain ancient friend of ours, as much in the craft of his disposition as he does in eye and in brow, there may be a wide difference betwixt what he means and what he speaks.””

    The Abbot

  • “I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the star of a galliard.”

    Twelfth Night; or, What You Will

  • “Alternatively, he may be well aware of the specific and tragic past occasions on which he has heard the galliard, perhaps being able to give detailed affective, temporal, and contextual information about those past experiences, and perhaps even to use this knowledge to work through the revived emotions.”

    Memory

  • “In a letter to Mersenne, Descartes asks why "what makes one man want to dance may make another want to cry": it may be, he suggests, that the second man has "never heard a galliard without some affliction befalling him", so that he cries”

    Memory

  • “The adventurous contraband trade which prevails throughout these mountain regions, and along the maritime borders of Andalusia, is doubtless at the bottom of this galliard character.”

    The Alhambra

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synonyms (3)

Words with the same meaning

  1. gay
  1. brisk
  1. active

same context (20)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. to!
  2. single-man
  3. starveling
  4. insurgents'
  1. talk-show
  2. leaguers
  3. microbiologist
  4. single-seat
  1. song-writer
  2. gladnesse
  3. second-rank
  4. downslope
  1. daydream
  2. bare-knuckle
  3. joy
  4. 20-something
  1. we
  2. freelancer
  3. schoolmistress
  4. failedto

reverse dictionary (8)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. romanesca
  1. gailard
  1. gailliarde
  1. gaylard
  1. cinque-pace
  1. gaillard
  1. galliard
  1. step

tags (1)

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Comments

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  • hernesheir 3. Archaic Spirited; lively; gay. - Century Dictionary
    Dec 23, 2010

  • jaime_d From "A Field of Snow on a Slope of the Rosenberg" by Guy Davenport:
    "And on a fine English day in the high Victorian year 1868, the year of the first bicycle race and the Trades Union Congress at Manchester, of The Moonstone and The Ring and the Book and of the siege of Magdela, four men gathered at Ashley House in London, a house leafy with Virginia creeper, its interior harmoniously dark and bright, like an English forest, dark with corners and doors and halls, with mahogany and teak and drapes as red as cherries, bright with windows, Indian brass, and lamps like moons, Lord Lindsay pollskepped with the hatchels of a cassowary, Lord Adare whose face looked like a silver teapot, and the galliard Captain Wynne." Jan 19, 2010

  • frindley A leaping dance, typically done by men. Apparently, though, Queen Elizabeth I would dance one every morning in her nightgown as a form of exercise. (She also, as a model for her people, took a bath every six months whether she needed it or not.) Apr 20, 2008

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‘galliard’ has been looked up 1681 times, loved by 2 people, added to 21 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 10.