BALLAD

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ballad mean? 

• BALLAD (noun)
  The noun BALLAD has 2 senses:

1. a narrative song with a recurrent refrain

2. a narrative poem of popular origin

  Familiarity information: BALLAD used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BALLAD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A narrative song with a recurrent refrain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

ballad; lay

Hypernyms ("ballad" is a kind of...):

song; vocal (a short musical composition with words)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ballad"):

minstrelsy (ballads sung by minstrels)

Derivation:

balladeer (a singer of popular ballads)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A narrative poem of popular origin

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

ballad; lay

Hypernyms ("ballad" is a kind of...):

poem; verse form (a composition written in metrical feet forming rhythmical lines)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ballad"):

Edda (either of two distinct works in Old Icelandic dating from the late 13th century and consisting of 34 mythological and heroic ballads composed between 800 and 1200; the primary source for Scandinavian mythology)

Derivation:

balladeer (a singer of popular ballads)

 Context examples 

The endless ballad had come to an end at last, and the whole diminished company about the camp-fire had broken into the chorus I had heard so often.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

“Why, she sings ballads, sometimes, to freshen up the others a little when they're out of spirits,” said Traddles.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful one.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

At the time he was lost in admiration at the deft way in which the jongleur disguised the loss of his two missing strings, and the lusty, hearty fashion in which he trolled out his little ballad of the outland bowmen.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Black Simon of Norwich crouched amid the rocks, crooning an Eastland ballad to himself, while he whetted his sword upon a flat stone which lay across his knees; while beside him sat Alleyne Edricson, and Norbury, the silent squire of Sir Oliver, holding out their chilled hands towards the crackling faggots.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But there I always found her, the same bright housewife; often humming her Devonshire ballads when no strange foot was coming up the stairs, and blunting the sharp boy in his official closet with melody.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Hordle John drew the back of his hand across his mouth, fixed his eyes upon the corner of the ceiling, and bellowed forth, in a voice which made the torches flicker, the southland ballad for which he had been asked.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Once she asked for a particular ballad, which she said her Ury (who was yawning in a great chair) doted on; and at intervals she looked round at him, and reported to Agnes that he was in raptures with the music.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress of my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra la, Ta ra la! accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)