Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A form of lyric verse of the Provençal troubadours satirizing political figures, personal rivals, or social morals.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In music, a service-song (so called in distinction from a love-song), a kind of song composed by the trouvères and troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, usually to satirize the faults and vices of the great and of the society of their day
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A peculiar species of poetry, for the most part devoted to moral and religious topics, and commonly satirical, -- often used by the troubadours of the Middle Ages.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun music A mostly
satirical song sung by thetroubadours ofProvence
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The sirvente was a song of war or politics, sometimes satirical, sometimes in praise of the exploits of a generous patron.
Woman's Work in Music Arthur Elson
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Perchance you know a ballade, villanelle, or sirvente which would fall sweetly on ears too long accustomed to howling wolves and rainy winds. '
Three Hearts and Three Lions Anderson, Poul, 1926- 1953
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The rhymes in the sirvente differed from what we consider correct by consisting always of a repetition of the same word.
Woman's Work in Music Arthur Elson
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The old Roman lay of the asylum on the Palatine Hill might almost serve as matter for a Norman _sirvente_, for the policy which it attributes to Romulus, and which was followed by his successors, was the policy adopted by Rollo, and which his successors maintained.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 Various
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For he was making a sirvente in praise of Guenevere.
Jurgen A Comedy of Justice James Branch Cabell 1918
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I remember well that, at the siege of Retters, there was a little, sleek, fat clerk of the name of Chaucer, who was so apt at rondel, sirvente, or tonson, that no man dare give back a foot from the walls, lest he find it all set down in his rhymes and sung by every underling and varlet in the camp.
The White Company Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1902
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I remember well that, at the siege of Retters, there was a little, sleek, fat clerk of the name of Chaucer, who was so apt at rondel, sirvente, or tonson, that no man dare give back a foot from the walls, lest he find it all set down in his rhymes and sung by every underling and varlet in the camp.
The White Company Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1902
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I remember well that, at the siege of Retters, there was a little, sleek, fat clerk of the name of Chaucer, who was so apt at rondel, sirvente, or tonson, that no man dare give back a foot from the walls, lest he find it all set down in his rhymes and sung by every underling and varlet in the camp.
The White Company Arthur Conan Doyle 1894
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The knight in the meantime, had brought the strings into some order, and after a short prelude, asked his host whether he would choose a _sirvente_ in the language of _oc_, or a _lai_ in the language of
Ivanhoe 1892
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I remember well that, at the siege of Retters, there was a little, sleek, fat clerk of the name of Chaucer, who was so apt at rondel, sirvente, or tonson, that no man dare give back a foot from the walls, lest he find it all set down in his rhymes and sung by every underling and varlet in the camp.
The White Company 1890
qms commented on the word sirvente
There are French words such as garage that the English have dressed up in local fashion (rhymes with marriage) while Americans have preserved some of the native sound (rhymes with barrage). Sirvente is such a one.
The Brits, as often their bent,
Domesticate Gallic sirvente.
The Yanks may still flaunt
A proper sirvente
But the English are intransigent.
September 3, 2016