Interlude

How to spell interlude

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce interlude

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does interlude mean?

1. nounAn intervening period, pause, or short break between two longer or more significant stretches of activity.

Interlude in a sentence

• The holiday was a welcome interlude between two demanding work projects.

• After a brief musical interlude, the second half of the concert began.

Where does interlude come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Medieval Latin interludium, a compound of the Latin inter, meaning 'between', and ludus, meaning 'play' or 'game'. In its earliest English life during the 1300s it named a short comic or light piece performed between the acts of a longer mystery or morality play, literally the 'play in between'. English took it through Old French entrelude before settling on the Latin-styled spelling we use now, which is why the ending is -lude rather than the more phonetic -lood. Over the centuries the theatrical sense broadened into any pause or intervening stretch of time, and music borrowed it for a passage played between larger movements. The same ludus root that gives the spelling its tricky ending also survives in 'ludicrous' and 'prelude', so remembering that family helps fix the -lude.

How the word is built

• inter- (between)
• -lude (from Latin ludus: play, game)