pavane

• pavan, paven, pavian, pavin, pavonne

From French pavane, from dialectal Italian pavana, contraction of the older padovana, feminine of padovano, meaning from the city of Padua (Italian Padova, dialectal form Pava).^[1]

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /pəˈvɑːn/

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pavane (plural pavanes)

1. (music) A musical style characteristic of the 16th and 17th centuries.
   • 1656, Robert Sanderson, Twenty Sermons‎^[1], London: Henry Seile, Sermon 13, p. 267:

     […] if the men should not agree what to play, but one would have a grave Pavane, another a nimbler Galliard, a third some frisking toy or Iigg, and then all of them should be wilful, none yield to his fellow, but every one scrape on his own tune as loud as he could: what a hideous hateful noise may you imagine would such a mess of Musick be?

   • 1916 December 29, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC:

     And he tasted in the language of memory ambered wines, dying fallings of sweet airs, the proud pavan […]

     New York: Huebsch, 1921, Chapter 5, p. 274,^[2]

2. (music, dance) A moderately slow, courtly processional dance in duple time/meter.

   Synonym: Paduan

   • 1664, Thomas Porter, The Carnival‎^[3], London: Henry Herringman, act II, scene 1, page 25:

     Why then be merry; be merry, or I’le be
     Out of humour, and then who shall dance the Pavan
     With Ossorio?

   • 1899, Edward Scott, Dancing in All Ages, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., page 128:

     The pavane† was quite popular at the time when Tabouret wrote his treatise, and he ventured the opinion that it would never cease to be so. It is not many years since an attempt was made in Paris to revive the dance, but it must be confessed that the modern adaption did not seem to bear any particularly striking resemblance to the original movement.

   • 1917, Emily Burbank, Woman as Decoration‎^[4]:

     Some day, when the Wateaus of the future are painting the court ladies who again dance pavanes in sunlit glades, wearing wigs and crinoline, such data will amuse.

   • 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 33:

     […] sweet to us it is to behold delightful dancing, be it the stately splendour of the Pavane which progresseth as large clouds at sun-down that pass by in splendour; or the graceful Allemande; or the Fandango, which goeth by degrees from languorous beauty to the swiftness and passion of Bacchanals dancing on the high lawns under a summer moon that hangeth in the pine trees; or the joyous maze of the Galliard; or the Gigue, dear to the Foliots.

   • 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 33, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings‎^[5], New York: Bantam, published 1971, pages 218–219:

     From the wings I heard and watched the pavane of tragedy move steadily toward its climax.

• → Welsh: pafán

pavane (third-person singular simple present pavanes, present participle pavaning, simple past and past participle pavaned)

1. (intransitive, rare) To dance the pavane.

Borrowed from dialectal Italian pavana, contraction of padovana, feminine of padovano, meaning from the city of Padua (Italian Padova, dialectal form Pava).

• IPA^(key): /pa.van/

pavane f (plural pavanes)

1. pavane

• pavaner

• → English: pavane, pavan, paven, pavian, pavin, pavonne
  • → Welsh: pafán

• “pavane”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

pavane m

1. definite plural of pave

pavane f

1. feminine plural of pavan