Ballad
nounA slow, sentimental or narrative song, or a poem that tells a story in short stanzas.
How to spell ballad
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce ballad
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does ballad mean?
- nounA slow, sentimental or narrative song, or a poem that tells a story in short stanzas.
Ballad in a sentence
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The band closed the concert with a quiet ballad about lost love.
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She set the old folk ballad to a new piano arrangement.
Where does ballad come from?
Language of origin: French
Ballad reaches English through Old French, where the word balade described a light song meant to accompany dancing. The French form grew out of Old Provencal balada, a 'dancing song', which in turn came from the verb balar, 'to dance', tied to the Late Latin ballare, 'to dance'. Behind that Latin verb stands the Greek ballizein, also meaning 'to dance about'. English took up the word in the late 1400s, and for a long time it kept the older spelling 'ballet' before settling on 'ballad' for the narrative song while 'ballet' branched off for the staged dance. The shared 'dance' ancestry is why ballad, ballet, and even the showpiece 'ball' all carry that doubled L, and remembering the dancing root helps fix the two Ls and the -ad ending rather than -id.
How the word is built
- ball- (from ballare: to dance)
- -ad (noun suffix denoting a song or poem)
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