Definitions

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

  • noun A curved form, especially a semicircular panel, window, or recess.
  • noun A rondel.
  • noun A rondeau.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In the fine arts, a composition or design contained within a circle, a type much favored by the painters and sculptor's of the quattrocento in Italy: found also in excavations at Cnosus in Crete; also a wooden platter painted. See tondo.
  • noun Anything round; a round form or figure; a circle, or something of circular form.
  • noun Specifically— In heraldry, a circular figure used as a bearing, and commonly blazoned, not roundel, but by a special name according to the tincture. Also roundle, roundlet.
  • noun In medieval armor: A round shield made of osiers, wood, sinews, or ropes covered with leather, or plates of metal, or stuck full of nails in concentric circles or other figures: sometimes made wholly of metal, and generally convex, but sometimes concave, and both with and without the umbo or boss. A piece of metal of circular or nearly circular form. A very small plate sewed or riveted to cloth or leather as part of a coat of fence. (β) A larger plate, used to protect the body at the défaut de la cuirasse, where that on the left side was fixed, that on the right side movable to allow of the couching of the lance, and at the knee-joint, usually one on each side, covering the articulation. Also called disk.
  • noun In fortification, a bastion of a semicircular form, introduced by Albert Dürer. It was about 300 feet in diameter, and contained roomy casemates for troops.
  • noun In architecture, a molding of semicircular profile.
  • noun A fruit-trencher of circular form.
  • noun A dance in which the dancers form a ring or circle. Also called round.
  • noun Same as rondel: specifically applied by Swinburne to a form apparently invented by himself.

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

  • noun (Mus.) A rondelay.
  • noun Anything having a round form; a round figure; a circle.
  • noun A small circular shield, sometimes not more than a foot in diameter, used by soldiers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
  • noun (Her.) A circular spot; a sharge in the form of a small circle.
  • noun (Fort.) A bastion of a circular form.

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

  • noun Anything having a round form; a round figure; a circle.
  • noun music A roundelay or rondelay.
  • noun A small circular shield, sometimes not more than a foot in diameter, used by soldiers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
  • noun heraldry A circular spot; a charge in the form of a small coloured circle.
  • noun aviation a circular insignia painted on an aircraft to identify its nationality or service.
  • noun A bastion of a circular form.

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

  • noun (heraldry) a charge in the shape of a circle
  • noun round piece of armor plate that protects the armpit
  • noun English form of rondeau having three triplets with a refrain after the first and third

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old French rondel, diminutive of rond, circle, round; see round.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French rondelet, diminutive of Old French rondel, (French: rondeau.

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Examples

  • Another piece of information I dug out as I was reading about the roundel is that it was traditionally used by officers of arms and the military to signify nationality.

    The roundel « One Size Fits One 2008

  • Above the two in the roundel is another Saint Michael bravely slaying a fire-breathing dragon.

    The Wayward Muse Elizabeth Hickey 2007

  • Above the two in the roundel is another Saint Michael bravely slaying a fire-breathing dragon.

    The Wayward Muse Elizabeth Hickey 2007

  • Above the two in the roundel is another Saint Michael bravely slaying a fire-breathing dragon.

    The Wayward Muse Elizabeth Hickey 2007

  • Two new ones are the hex and pentagon, while the circle (once called a roundel, bezant, plate, torteau, hurt, etc., depending on its color) is simply called a circle with the correct color named.

    Concordance A Terran Empire concordance Ann Wilson

  • When the fairies sing a song, they add pleasing variety to the play's ample store of lyric forms: for their 'roundel' or dancing in a ring, they sing a lullaby.

    Shakespeare Bevington, David 2002

  • That is why, in this book, in translating a 'roundel' of Villon which Rossetti had already translated, he misses the naïve quality of the French which Rossetti, in a version not in all points so faithful as this, had been able, in some subtle way, to retain.

    Figures of Several Centuries Arthur Symons 1905

  • A "roundel" of _Alpenrosen_, or dwarf rhododendrons, is the only break in the growth of moss and heather.

    Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen — Volume 2 Sarah Tytler 1870

  • My roundel script developed tails that allowed each letter to flow into the next.

    Longhand « Write Anything 2009

  • The sight lines are such that as we take in a seventh-century 3½-foot vertical stele of Vishnu from northern or eastern India we also catch a glimpse of a terra-cotta roundel made some 200 years earlier.

    From Stillness, Cosmic Action Lee Lawrence 2011

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