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Definition of "rondo" [ron•do]

  • A musical composition built on the alternation of a principal recurring theme and contrasting episodes. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "rondo" in a sentence
  • "The student should note particularly the problem of repetition and contrast (mentioned in Sec. 134) as here worked out, as the rondo was the first monophonic form in which this matter was at all satisfactorily solved, and its construction is especially interesting because it is readily seen to be one of the direct predecessors of the highest form of all -- the sonata."
  • "On his way to the gourbi, his mental occupation was a very laborious effort to put together what he was pleased to call a rondo, upon a model of versification all but obsolete."
  • "The marker was a scrap of paper torn from the scribbling pad and on it, in Knighton's stylized 'rondo' handwriting, were written a few lines of verse."