bolero
Syllables: bo·le·ro/bəʊ̯ˈlɛə̯.ɹəʊ̯/UK/bəʊ̯ˈlɛə̯.ɹəʊ̯/
bolero noun: a lively Spanish dance in 3/4 time; also an unrelated slower-tempo dance of Cuban origin, in 2/4 time.
Noun
bolero (plural boleros)
- A lively Spanish dance in 3/4 time; also an unrelated slower-tempo dance of Cuban origin, in 2/4 time.
- Edward's attention was at first rivetted on two dancers engaged in their graceful national dance, the bolero. What a blessing to a people is a climate that encourages out-of-door amusement!1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 335
- A type of short, buttonless jacket or blouse, open or tied in front and ending at the diaphragm.
- He took the bolero, which was made of soft angora, and rubbed it up and down his cheek.2009, Jennifer Worth, Farewell to the East End, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, page 175
- It must have been a balm to have [Naomi] Wolf come along at the dawn of a new decade and wear the badge as if it were a chic bolero jacket, as was the style back then.2023, Naomi Klein, “Diagonal Lines”, in Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN
Verb
bolero (third-person singular simple present boleros, present participle boleroing, simple past and past participle boleroed)
- To dance the bolero.
Forms of bolero
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | boleros |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | boleros |
| present participle | boleroing |
| past participle | boleroed |
| past | boleroed |
Origin of bolero
Borrowed from Spanish bolero, from bola + -ero. First attested in 1787 (noun). First attested in 1834 (verb).
Words that rhyme with bolero
Questions about bolero
- What does bolero mean?
- Bolero means a lively Spanish dance in 3/4 time; also an unrelated slower-tempo dance of Cuban origin, in 2/4 time.
- What part of speech is bolero?
- Bolero can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce bolero?
- Bolero is pronounced /bəʊ̯ˈlɛə̯.ɹəʊ̯/.
- What is the plural of bolero?
- The plural of bolero is boleros.
Words near bolero in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bolero (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Neøn-bolero.wav.
Cite this entry: “bolero.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bolero. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.