ballad

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A narrative poem, often of folk origin and intended to be sung, consisting of simple stanzas and usually having a refrain.
• noun The music for such a poem.
• noun A popular song especially of a romantic or sentimental nature.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To make or sing ballads.
• To celebrate in a ballad.
• noun A song intended as an accompaniment to a dance.
• noun The tune to which such a song is sung.
• noun A short narrative poem, especially one adapted for singing; a poem partly epic and partly lyric.
• noun In music, originally, a short and simple vocal melody, often adapted to more than one stanza of poetry and having a simple instrumental accompaniment.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A popular kind of narrative poem, adapted for recitation or singing; ; esp., a sentimental or romantic poem in short stanzas.
• intransitive verb obsolete To make or sing ballads.
• transitive verb obsolete To make mention of in ballads.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A long song or poem that tells a story.
• noun A slow romantic pop song.
• verb obsolete To make mention of in ballads.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a narrative poem of popular origin
• noun a narrative song with a recurrent refrain