villanelle

noun

vil·​la·​nelle ˌvi-lə-ˈnel 

: a chiefly French verse form running on two rhymes and consisting typically of five tercets and a quatrain in which the first and third lines of the opening tercet recur alternately at the end of the other tercets and together as the last two lines of the quatrain

Examples of villanelle in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Elongated and paved with bricks, the path is a closed form, a kind of physical villanelle that thwarts the experience of continuity or the feeling of finitude. —Hamilton Cain, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Mar. 2023

Susan Kinsolving’s villanelle obsessively circles the same two rhymes, keeping pace with the anxiety of a mind trying to cope. —Clare Bucknell, The New Yorker, 22 Dec. 2020

Her own verse often drew on classical forms such as the villanelle, sestina, tritina and sonnet, and sometimes incorporated references to ancient mythology and medieval legend. —Harrison Smith, Washington Post, 8 July 2019

But then, rarely does an individual strip contain a complete and proper villanelle about food. —Wired Blogs, WIRED, 22 Sep. 2006

Word History

Etymology

French, from Italian villanella

First Known Use

1877, in the meaning defined above