Adjacent Words

Fugue definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FUGUE, n. [L. fuga.]
In music, a chase or succession in the parts; that which expresses the capital thought or sentiment of the piece, in causing it to pass successively and alternately from one part to another.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: dissociative disorder in which a person forgets who they are and leaves home to creates a new life; during the fugue there is no memory of the former life; after recovering there is no memory for events during the dissociative state [syn: fugue, psychogenic fugue]
2: a dreamlike state of altered consciousness that may last for hours or days
3: a musical form consisting of a theme repeated a fifth above or a fourth below its first statement

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: probably from Italian fuga flight, fugue, from Latin, flight, from fugere Date: 1597 1. a. a musical composition in which one or two themes are repeated or imitated by successively entering voices and contrapuntally developed in a continuous interweaving of the voice parts b. something that resembles a fugue especially in interweaving repetitive elements 2. a disturbed state of consciousness in which the one affected seems to perform acts in full awareness but upon recovery cannot recollect the acts performed • fugue verb • fuguist noun

Britannica Concise

Musical composition characterized by systematic imitation of one or more themes in counterpoint. Fugues vary greatly in their actual form. The principal theme (subject) is imitated--i.e., repeated successively in similar form at different pitch levels by different parts or voices--in the so-called exposition. The countersubject is the continuation of the subject that accompanies the subject theme's subsequent entries in the other voices. Episodes using modified themes often separate the subject's entries. The fugue emerged gradually from the imitative polyphony of the 13th cent. J. S. Bach's keyboard fugues are the most famous of all. The works of Bach and G. F. Handel inspired the later fugues of W. A. Mozart, L. van Beethoven, and others, many of whom commonly included fugues in the final movements of symphonies, string quartets, and sonatas.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 Mus. a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts. 2 Psychol. loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment. --v.intr. (fugues, fugued, fuguing) Mus. compose or perform a fugue. Derivatives: fuguist n. Etymology: F or It. f. L fuga flight

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fugue Fugue, n. [F., fr. It. fuga, fr. L. fuga a fleeing, flight, akin to fugere to fiee. See Fugitive.] (Mus.) A polyphonic composition, developed from a given theme or themes, according to strict contrapuntal rules. The theme is first given out by one voice or part, and then, while that pursues its way, it is repeated by another at the interval of a fifth or fourth, and so on, until all the parts have answered one by one, continuing their several melodies and interweaving them in one complex progressive whole, in which the theme is often lost and reappears. All parts of the scheme are eternally chasing each other, like the parts of a fugue. --Jer. Taylor.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(fugues) A fugue is a piece of music that begins with a simple tune which is then repeated by other voices or instrumental parts with small variations. (TECHNICAL) N-COUNT

Moby Thesaurus

agnosia, amnesia, blackout, canon, catalepsy, cataplexy, catatonic stupor, catch, daydreaming, daze, dream state, fugato, fugue state, hypnotic trance, loss of memory, reverie, rondeau, rondino, rondo, rondoletto, round, roundelay, sleepwalking, somnambulism, stupor, trance, troll, word deafness