ballads

noun

plural of ballad
as in songs
a short musical composition for the human voice often with instrumental accompaniment a haunting ballad about lost love and loneliness

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of ballads Robin Hood, the ballads all postdate the Peasants’ Revolt and were wildly popular and continued to resonate and echo down. — Antonia Blyth, Deadline, 4 Sep. 2026 The project featured eight tracks that were mostly recorded in Spanish with the help of Rudy Pérez, a Grammy-winning producer behind some of the biggest ballads in Latin music. — Maya Georgi, Rolling Stone, 4 Sep. 2026 As a result, the concert featured no acoustic sets, no power ballads, no reason for anybody to sit down. — Rodney Ho, AJC.com, 28 Aug. 2026 The soft, soothing sounds of Anne Murray and the over-the-top, emotional ballads of Barbra Streisand had filled our living room and shaped my understanding of female singers. — Lisa Whittington-Hill, Longreads, 27 Aug. 2026 Her mother, Avie Lee Parton, ran the household and was fond of singing traditional Appalachian ballads. — Corky Siemaszko, NBC news, 25 Aug. 2026 Any songwriter should be so lucky — to have one of your hallmark tunes be lovingly swept out from under you and become one of the definitive ballads of pop music. — Los Angeles Times, 25 Aug. 2026 The result is a self-reflective collection of empowering pop anthems and wistful ballads that detail not only the dissolution of a relationship but a return to oneself. — Ilana Kaplan, PEOPLE, 21 Aug. 2026 Up until that point, a lot of people thought that my greatest strength was to sing heartbreak ballads. — Jeffrey Masters, New Yorker, 16 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ballads
  1. songs
  2. hymns
  3. lyrics
  4. anthems
  5. vocals
Noun
  • The latest version includes a handful of unreleased tunes, in addition to the original 2006 songs.
    — Caché McClay, USA Today, 4 Sep. 2026
  • Artists using the library to record, produce and distribute songs is not unheard of.
    — Caden Perry, jsonline.com, 4 Sep. 2026
Definition of songs
Noun
  • The scholar of religion Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900) noticed that many Vedic hymns praise different deities using the same superlatives and ascribe to them the same mythological feats.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Avie Lee filled the family's two-room home with music by singing hymns, folk songs and traditional mountain music.
    — Devarrick Turner, USA Today, 25 Aug. 2026
Definition of hymns
Noun
  • The live-to-film concert will present an orchestral performance of the score from John Powell and Stephen Schwartz, who also helmed music and lyrics.
    — Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 9 Sep. 2026
  • And the most popular musical group, in terms of how frequently their songs and lyrics appear in the scientific literature, is The Beatles, according to a new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, ArsTechnica, 9 Sep. 2026
Definition of lyrics
Noun
  • Not with hardcore perreo or the female empowerment anthems that have become her trademark, but with the vulnerability of a broken heart.
    — Leila Cobo, Billboard, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Dolly Parton, the brilliant songwriter and beloved country singer who has died at age 80, wrote one of the great anthems of the American working class.
    — John Nichols, Washington Post, 26 Aug. 2026
Definition of anthems
Noun
  • Granduciel is backed on the recording by longtime War on Drugs bandmates Dave Hartley (bass), Robbie Bennett (keyboards), Anthony LaMarca (drums, guitar), Jon Natchez (organ, saxophone) and Eliza Hardy-Jones (vocals).
    — SPIN Staff, SPIN, 9 Sep. 2026
  • This one resembles the winsome, acoustic Sea Change (2002) and Morning Phase (2014), dressing the shape-shifting troubadour’s reflective vocals in windswept orchestral-folk adornment.
    — Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 9 Sep. 2026
Definition of vocals

Browse Nearby Words

ballad
ballads
ballast
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Cite this Entry

“Ballads.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ballads. Accessed 11 Sep. 2026.

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