Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A Polish dance resembling the polka, frequently adopted as a ballet form.
- n. A piece of music for such a dance, written in 3/4 or 3/8 time with the second beat heavily accented.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A lively Polish dance, properly for four or eight pairs of dancers, originally performed with a singing accompaniment. The steps and figures are various, and may be improvised. The more modern mazurka is a polka with two sliding steps instead of one; the music is in triple time.
- n. Music for such a dance or in its rhythm, which is triple and moderately rapid, with a capricious accent on the second beat of the measure. Older mazurkas usually have a drone bass. The prominence of the mazurka form is mainly due to the predilection shown for it in the works of Chopin.
Wiktionary
- n. music A Polish folk dance in triple time, usually moderately fast, containing a heavy accent on the third beat and occasionally the second beat.
- n. music A classical musical composition inspired by the folk dance and conforming in some respects to its form, particularly as popularized by Chopin.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a Polish national dance in triple time
- n. music composed for dancing the mazurka
Etymologies
- From Russian мазурку, from Polish mazurek "dance of the Mazur," an inhabitant of Mazowsze (compare Medieval Latin Mazovia), an ancient cultural region in east-central Poland. (Wiktionary)
- Russian, possibly from Polish (tańczyć) mazurka, (to dance) the mazurka, accusative of mazurek, dance of the Mazovians, from diminutive of Mazur, person from Mazovia, a historical region of eastern Poland. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“My last remarks hold good with the fourth mazurka, which is bleak and joyless till, with the entrance of A major, a fairer prospect opens.”
“The mazurka part is how the poem 'turns' on its one-word lines, all of them adjectives.”
The Huffington Post: John Seed: Mazurki: The Multiple Meanings of a Philip Guston Drawing
“Mr. CARLOS SANDRONI (Ethnomusicologist, University of Pernambuco): You have polka, waltz and - what's more - mazurka.”
“Does a discussion of the Lydian mode really enhance the layman's enjoyment of a mazurka?”
The Washington Post: Ganz's copious, commanding Chopin project
“HUIZENGA: So this particular mazurka, it starts out with a very identifiable theme, and it's fine, and you think you know where it's going.”
“But many Poles hold on to him as a very special person, a very special musician whose music really says Poland, especially when he took different forms, Polish dances, like the mazurka, and took a rustic dance and made high art out of it.”
“(Soundbite of song, "Mazurka in F Sharp Minor") RAZ: And that mazurka we're hearing, Tom, is by the great Arthur Rubinstein.”
“And I think something that's special about this particular performance and this mazurka, it points out something that you can find in many places in Chopin's music, which is fascinating to me, and that is this idea that the music sounds like it's off the cuff, and it couldn't be further from the truth.”
“The following clip shows the mazurka as performed on May 3, 2008 at the University of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland.”
The Huffington Post: George Heymont: The Powerful Appeal of Opera To Ethnic Communities (VIDEOS)
“The antagonist will burst into a room to start grappling with the hero – except, of course, the hero was just on the other side of the room, making me wonder how he got by the arguing waiters and mazurka-playing band, not to mention the chocolate fountain.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mazurka’.
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phrontistery - m
from phrontistery.info
multiloculate, multilocation, multiflorous, multifid, multifarious, multicipital, multeity, multarticulate, multanimous, mulse, mullock, mullion and 898 more...
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MUSIC - dance styles
A list generated by Phrontistery
http://phrontistery.info/dance.html
which I wanted to have along with my own lists on Wordnikallemande, beguine, bergamask, bolero, bossa-nova, boston, bourrée, bransle, buck-and-wing, cabriole, cakewalk, canary and 93 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Meters
knitmeter, butyrometer, cathetometer, handsometer, meter maid, spammeter, ceilometer, dilatometer, bdellometer, bolo-tie-meter, fathommeter, meet-and-greet-meter and 117 more...
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Redundancing
The Moves. Do~do~ditty!
tango, bolero, cha cha, foxtrot, foxtantino, hip hop, hustle, jive, merengue, two step, paso doble, quickstep and 219 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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Baby, Work Out!
Names of popular or once dances.
hully gully, slauson, twist, jitterbug, stroll, pony, mashed potato, swim, jerk, watusi, boogaloo, worm and 54 more...
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the most beautiful
velvet, wainwright, susurrous, nutmeg, pegasus, tintinnabular, gossamer, lyricism, rococo, townlet, prince, nymph and 139 more...
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snarkout's Words
agenbite, scandent, vulpine, ratel, corvid, magpie, meline, musteline, ecdysiast, waxwing, abecedarian, guillotine and 111 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, M
metamerism, malady, margin, marauder, maverick, mercury, mirth, mandible, macerate, meteor, manumission, mica and 292 more...
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
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Musical words
nocturne, flat, sharp, waltz, etude, opera, soprano, alto, tenor, bass, cello, flute and 131 more...
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Dain's Words
rabble, terminus, archaic, atavism, demiurge, waylay, syzygy, jocoserious, quark, entropy, cinnabar, shamble and 912 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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kant's Words
mandrágora, doppelganger, sinestesia, baladí, adriático, chanson, correveidile, angster, dèja vu, otredad, grasshopper, republic and 1074 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mazurka.
hernesheir Sonny's Mazurka is a very popular Irish session tune. Dec 25, 2012
dailyword This dance was mentioned by Natasha in War And Peace. Dec 25, 2012
treeseed The mazurka (Polish: mazurek, named after Poland's Mazury (Masuria) district; mazurka is the feminine form of mazurek) is a stylized Polish folk dance in triple meter with a lively tempo, containing a heavy accent on the third or second beat. Its folk originals are: slow kujawiak and fast oberek. It is always found to have either a triplet, trill, dotted eighth note pair, or ordinary eighth note pair before two quarter notes. The dance became popular at Ballroom dances in the rest of Europe during the nineteenth century. The Polish national anthem has a mazurka rhythm, but is too slow to be considered a mazurka.
Several classical composers have written mazurkas, with the best known being the 57 composed by Frédéric Chopin for solo piano, the most famous of which is the Mazurka nr. 5. Henryk Wieniawski wrote two for violin with piano (the popular "Obertas", op. 19), and in the 1920s, Karol Szymanowski wrote a set of twenty for piano.
_Wikipedia Feb 25, 2008
brtom He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding feet past the fireplace ...
Joyce, Ulysses, 7 Jan 1, 2007