Word.ws English Dictionary

fugue

/ˈfjuːɡ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Multicultural London English/ˈfyɡ/

fugue noun: a contrapuntal piece of music wherein a particular melody is played in a number of voices, each voice introduced in turn by playing the melody.

Noun

fugue (plural fugues)

  1. A contrapuntal piece of music wherein a particular melody is played in a number of voices, each voice introduced in turn by playing the melody.
    Synonyms:
    fuga
  2. Anything in literature, poetry, film, painting, etc., that resembles a fugue in structure or in its elaborate complexity and formality.
    • Jacobsen's theory about the empty storehouse is still valid, for a myth never has one meaning only; a myth is a polyphonic fugue of many voices.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 175
  3. A fugue state.

Verb

fugue (third-person singular simple present fugues, present participle fuguing, simple past and past participle fugued)

  1. To improvise, in singing, by introducing vocal ornamentation to fill gaps etc.
  2. (intransitive) To spend time in a dissociative fugue state.
    • And most of them women, and these only stayed in a fugue state for a relatively short time, like a couple of hours or a couple of days. As far as we know Malenov fugued for close to twenty years.2014, Richard D. Dalrymple, Fugue, page 33
    • Fugue states can have phases—it's possible she fugued from the start, and only woke to what was happening on that bus.2021, Robin Wasserman, Mother Daughter Widow Wife, page 87

fugue meaning in Tamil, Arabic, Persian and Vietnamese

fugue in Tamil

மறதி

fugue in Arabic

piece of music
فُوغَا fūḡā

fugue in Persian

piece of music
فوگ fug

fugue in Vietnamese

piece of music
tẩu pháp

Synonyms of fugue

Forms of fugue

Noun
pluralfugues
Verb
third-person singular presentfugues
present participlefuguing
past participlefugued
pastfugued

Plural of fugue: fugues

Origin of fugue

Borrowed from French fugue, from Italian fuga (“flight, ardor”), from Latin fuga (“act of fleeing”), from fugiō (“to flee”); compare Ancient Greek φυγή (phugḗ). Apparently from the metaphor that the first part starts alone on its course, and is pursued by later parts. Doublet of fuga.

Words formed from fugue

Phrases with fugue

Words that rhyme with fugue

Questions about fugue

What does fugue mean?
Fugue means a contrapuntal piece of music wherein a particular melody is played in a number of voices, each voice introduced in turn by playing the melody.
What is fugue in Tamil?
Fugue in Tamil is மறதி. See Fugue meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is fugue?
Fugue can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce fugue?
Fugue is pronounced /ˈfyɡ/ (Multicultural London English).
What is the plural of fugue?
The plural of fugue is fugues.

Words near fugue in the dictionary

  1. fugoids
  2. Fugou
  3. fugs
  4. fugu
  5. Fugu Plan
  6. fugue
  7. fugue state
  8. fugue states
  9. fugued
  10. fuguelike
  11. fugues

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fugue (page history and authors); fugue (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: en-us-fugue.ogg.

Cite this entry: “fugue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fugue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.