Word.ws English Dictionary

pavan

pavan is the alternative form of pavane.

Meaning of pavane

Noun

pavane (plural pavanes)

  1. A musical style characteristic of the 16th and 17th centuries.
    • […] if the men should not agree what to play, but one would have a grave Pavane, another a nimbler Galliard, a third some frisking toy or Iigg, and then all of them should be wilful, none yield to his fellow, but every one scrape on his own tune as loud as he could: what a hideous hateful noise may...1656, Robert Sanderson, Twenty Sermons, London: Henry Seile, Sermon 13, p. 267
  2. A moderately slow, courtly processional dance in duple time/meter.
    • Why then be merry; be merry, or I’le be
      Out of humour, and then who shall dance the Pavan
      With Ossorio?1664, Thomas Porter, The Carnival, London: Henry Herringman, act II, scene 1, page 25
    Synonyms:
    Paduan

See all 3 meanings of pavane

Proper noun capitalized: Pavan

Pavan

  1. A male given name from Sanskrit used in India.

Forms of pavan

pluralpavans

Origin of pavan

Borrowed from Sanskrit पवन (pavana).

Questions about pavan

What does pavan mean?
Pavan means a male given name from Sanskrit used in India.
What is pavan the alternative form of?
Pavan is the alternative form of pavane.
What part of speech is pavan?
Pavan is a proper noun.

Words near pavan in the dictionary

  1. Pavagadhi
  2. pavage
  3. pavages
  4. pavais
  5. pavaises
  6. pavan
  7. pavane
  8. pavaned
  9. pavanes
  10. Pavani
  11. pavaning

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pavan (page history and authors); Pavan (page history and authors); pavane (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.

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