Definition of "ballade" [bal•lade]

• A verse form usually consisting of three stanzas of eight or ten lines each along with a brief envoy, with all three stanzas and the envoy ending in the same one-line refrain. (noun)
• Music A composition, usually for the piano, having the romantic or dramatic quality of a narrative poem. (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.

• "With the exception of the sonnet, the ballade is the noblest of the artificial forms of verse cultivated in English literature."
• "After _A Midsummer Holiday_ no one can contend any longer that the ballade is a structure necessarily any more artificial than the sonnet."
• "It takes genius, however, to cook _bouillabaisse_; and, to parody what De Banville says about his own recipe for making a mechanical "ballade," "en employment ce moyen, on est sur de faire une mauvaise, irremediablement mauvaise"