villanelle

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 villanelle From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, villanelle was simply the French term for an Italian country song, and during the Renaissance, poets often used the title for their work regardless of a poem’s specific structure. The Editors, JSTOR Daily, 19 Aug. 2025 Elongated and paved with bricks, the path is a closed form, a kind of physical villanelle that thwarts the experience of continuity or the feeling of finitude. Hamilton Cain, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Mar. 2023 Susan Kinsolving’s villanelle obsessively circles the same two rhymes, keeping pace with the anxiety of a mind trying to cope. Clare Bucknell, The New Yorker, 22 Dec. 2020 Her own verse often drew on classical forms such as the villanelle, sestina, tritina and sonnet, and sometimes incorporated references to ancient mythology and medieval legend. Harrison Smith, Washington Post, 8 July 2019 But then, rarely does an individual strip contain a complete and proper villanelle about food. Wired Blogs, WIRED, 22 Sep. 2006
Recent Examples of Synonyms for villanelle
Noun
  • When women and men speaking Cervantes’ tongue are sent to concentration camps like the South Florida Detention Facility or CECOT, then what use is a sonnet?
    Ed Simon September 22, Literary Hub, 22 Sep. 2025
  • To the west, the London Eye pirouettes above the skyline—to the east, Shakespeare’s Globe serves legendary sonnets.
    Lewis Nunn, Forbes.com, 6 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • This extraordinary collection of two volumes of poems and a third of prose shows the empathy, intuition, and exquisite use of the natural world that make Oliver the heiress of Emerson and Thoreau.
    AudioFile Magazine September 30, Literary Hub, 30 Sep. 2025
  • Do not carve your poem into a coconut, even though that would be pretty cool.
    Connie Ogle, Miami Herald, 30 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • The Eater line is a partnership between Heritage and the food site that launched last year, but six new pieces were added this year, including a mini sauté pan ($120) and a roomy six-quart rondeau pan ($180) that’s perfect for searing, pan roasting, and simmering.
    BYChris Morris, Fortune, 27 Nov. 2024
  • The set includes a saucepan, saucier, frying pan, and 5.2-quart rondeau.
    Molly Allen, Southern Living, 12 Aug. 2024
Noun
  • There are some touching moments, dirty limericks and a good balance of characters presented by veterans of the scene.
    Frederick Melo, Twin Cities, 2 Aug. 2025
  • They were trained to repeat dirty jokes and limericks about Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer to customers.
    Rachel Hale, USA Today, 10 July 2025
Noun
  • That celebrated epigram is delivered by the character of Octave, who is the greatest creation of Renoir’s career—not least because he’s played by Renoir in a performance that’s essentially a self-portrait, even an onscreen self-creation.
    Richard Brody, New Yorker, 30 July 2025
  • It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story.
    Jann E. Freed, Forbes.com, 18 June 2025
Noun
  • The film marks his second time grappling with the postmodern author’s ideas on screen, following 2014’s Inherent Vice, a rueful elegy to California counterculture, which was itself the first, and to date only, official adaptation of Pynchon in cinema.
    Rory Doherty, Time, 26 Sep. 2025
  • This is her elegy, her memorial, her voice, her face.
    Sophie Monks Kaufman, IndieWire, 3 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • Revered by all three Abrahamic religions, the psalms were often recited, read, and sung in routine worship.
    Brendan Ruberry, semafor.com, 23 Sep. 2025
  • Archbishop Bernard Hebda addressed some 2,000 people at the vigil, where psalms were sung and the silences burrowed deep in the wide room.
    Jesse Bedayn, Twin Cities, 28 Aug. 2025
Noun
  • The song was released with the video, an ode to pastels that depicts the changing of the guard from one album to the next with a snake turning into a cluster of butterflies.
    Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 1 Oct. 2025
  • The rear hallway and staircases were envisioned by James Thomas as an ode to the Amalfi Coast and Greek islands.
    Tori Latham, Robb Report, 30 Sep. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Villanelle.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/villanelle. Accessed 5 Oct. 2025.

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