virelai
UK/ˈvɪɹəleɪ/
virelai noun: a medieval poetic form consisting of two or more three line units in each stanza, with the rhyme scheme AABAAB.
Noun
virelai (plural virelais)
- A medieval poetic form consisting of two or more three line units in each stanza, with the rhyme scheme AABAAB.
- Now making layes of loue and louers paine,
Bransles, Ballads, virelayes, and verses vaine [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC - Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.1881, Oscar Wilde, Hélas!
- Now making layes of loue and louers paine,
Forms of virelai
| plural | virelais |
|---|---|
| alternative form | virelay |
Origin of virelai
From Old French virelai, alteration (after lai) of vireli.
Questions about virelai
- What does virelai mean?
- Virelai means a medieval poetic form consisting of two or more three line units in each stanza, with the rhyme scheme AABAAB.
- What part of speech is virelai?
- Virelai is a noun.
- How do you pronounce virelai?
- Virelai is pronounced /ˈvɪɹəleɪ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of virelai?
- The plural of virelai is virelais.
Words near virelai in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: virelai (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: “virelai.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/virelai. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.