berceuse
Definitions
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- noun A cradle-song; especially, a vocal or instrumental composition of a tender, quiet, and soothing character.
Examples
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Doubtless she knew it too, as she sat there sewing on the frail garment which lay across her knee and singing blithely under her breath some air with cadence like a berceuse.
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Old as were the words, the melody was older -- so old and quaint and sweet that it seemed a berceuse fashioned to soothe the drowsing centuries, lest the memories of ancient wrongs awake and rouse the very dead from their Gothic tombs.
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Historically minded viewers will notice that the accompanying music — the berceuse from Gabriel Faure’s Dolly Suite — was used as the opening theme to the long-running radio series from Davies’s youth, the sweet, literate Listen With Mother, a show of stories and songs for the under-5 set and their mothers.
Benjamin Schwarz, 'Intimate History,' The Atlantic, April 2010
Note
This word comes from the French ‘bercer,’ to rock.
