WordWeight : Weighing the Words

Pronunciation : Ron*deau"
Part of Speech : n.
Etymology : [F. See Roundel.] [Written also rondo.]
Definition : 1. A species of lyric poetry so composed as to contain a refrain or repetition which recurs according to a fixed law, and a limited number of rhymes recurring also by rule.

Note: When the rondeau was called the rondel it was mostly written in fourteen octosyllabic lines of two rhymes, as in the rondels of Charles d'Orleans. . . . In the 17th century the approved form of the rondeau was a structure of thirteen verses with a refrain. Encyc. Brit.

2. (Mus.)

Defn: See Rondo,1.
Source : Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913