Word.ws English Dictionary

roundelay

/ˈɹaʊndɪˌleɪ/US/ˈɹaʊndəˌleɪ/

roundelay noun: a poem or song having a line or phrase repeated at regular intervals.

Noun

roundelay (plural roundelays)

  1. A poem or song having a line or phrase repeated at regular intervals.
    • It fell upon a holly eve,
      Hey ho, hollidaye!
      When holly fathers wont to shrieve,
      Now gynneth this roundelay.1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC
    • When merry milkmaids click the latch
      And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
      And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
      Twice or thrice his roundelay,
      Twice or thrice his roundelay;
      Alone and warming his five wits,
      The white owl in the belfry sits.1830, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, Song - The Owl
  2. A dance in a circle.
  3. Anything having a round form; a roundel.

roundelay meaning in Tamil

roundelay in Tamil

அடுக்கிசையுடைய எளிய சிறு பாடல்வகை, பறவைப்பாடல்

Forms of roundelay

pluralroundelays
alternative formrondelay

Origin of roundelay

From Middle French rondelet, diminutive of Old French rondel (French: rondeau). Ending -lay either from lay (“ballad or sung poem”), or from virelay.

Questions about roundelay

What does roundelay mean?
Roundelay means a poem or song having a line or phrase repeated at regular intervals.
What is roundelay in Tamil?
Roundelay in Tamil is அடுக்கிசையுடைய எளிய சிறு பாடல்வகை, பறவைப்பாடல். See Roundelay meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is roundelay?
Roundelay is a noun.
How do you pronounce roundelay?
Roundelay is pronounced /ˈɹaʊndɪˌleɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of roundelay?
The plural of roundelay is roundelays.

Words near roundelay in the dictionary

  1. rounded vowels
  2. roundedly
  3. roundedness
  4. roundednesses
  5. roundel
  6. roundelay
  7. roundelays
  8. roundell
  9. roundells
  10. roundels
  11. rounden

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: roundelay (page history and authors); roundelay (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-roundelay.wav.

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