pavane
/pəˈvɑːn/
pavane noun: a musical style characteristic of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Noun
pavane (plural pavanes)
- 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
- And he tasted in the language of memory ambered wines, dying fallings of sweet airs, the proud pavan […]1916, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC
- 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 - The pavane† was quite popular at the time when Tabouret wrote his treatise, and he ventured the opinion that it would never cease to be so. It is not many years since an attempt was made in Paris to revive the dance, but it must be confessed that the modern adaption did not seem to bear any...1899, Edward Scott, Dancing in All Ages, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., page 128
- Synonyms:
- Paduan
- Why then be merry; be merry, or I’le be
Verb
pavane (third-person singular simple present pavanes, present participle pavaning, simple past and past participle pavaned)
- To dance the pavane.
Examples of pavane in a sentence
- The pavane† was quite popular at the time when Tabouret wrote his treatise, and he ventured the opinion that it would never cease to be so.1899, Edward Scott, Dancing in All Ages, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., page 128:
- Some day, when the Wateaus of the future are painting the court ladies who again dance pavanes in sunlit glades, wearing wigs and crinoline, such data will amuse.1917, Emily Burbank, Woman as Decoration:
- From the wings I heard and watched the pavane of tragedy move steadily toward its climax.1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 33, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, published 1971, pages 218–219:
Synonyms of pavane
Forms of pavane
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | pavanes |
| alternative form | pavan |
| alternative form | paven |
| alternative form | pavian |
| alternative form | pavin |
| alternative form | pavonne |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | pavanes |
| present participle | pavaning |
| past participle | pavaned |
| past | pavaned |
Origin of pavane
From French pavane, from dialectal Italian pavana, contraction of the older padovana, feminine of padovano, meaning from the city of Padua (Italian Padova, dialectal form Pava).
Words that rhyme with pavane
Questions about pavane
- What does pavane mean?
- Pavane means a musical style characteristic of the 16th and 17th centuries.
- How do you use pavane in a sentence?
- The pavane† was quite popular at the time when Tabouret wrote his treatise, and he ventured the opinion that it would never cease to be so.
- What part of speech is pavane?
- Pavane can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce pavane?
- Pavane is pronounced /pəˈvɑːn/ (UK).
- What is the plural of pavane?
- The plural of pavane is pavanes.
Words near pavane in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pavane.wav.
Cite this entry: “pavane.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pavane. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.