ballad

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English balade,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Middle French balade (“song for dancing”),^[6][3][5] in Old French ballade or balade,^[2][7][4][8] from Old Occitan balada (“dance, song for dancing”),^[6][2][7][4] formed from balar (“to dance”) and the suffix -ada.^[6][5] The Occitan verb is from Late Latin ballō (“to dance”),^[2][7][8][9] the source also of ball in the sense "dancing party".^[9][2][4] The OED records the French word as a song for dancing from the late 13th century, and the Occitan one from the late 12th century.^[6] It notes that the word is attested earlier in the specialised senses now spelled ballade,^[6] and Barnhart takes the ballade of Chaucer (about 1386) as perhaps a separate borrowing of the same French word.^[7][10] Related words in other Romance languages include ballada, bailada and ballata.^[6] In the 16th and 17th centuries the ending was often written with a final t, as it was in salad,^[7][11] and Pepys could still write of "a ballet I brought with me".^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A poem or song in a form of strict or varied stanzas: before 1393, as balade in Gower's Confessio Amantis.^[7][10] The OED, which treats that sense under ballade, has the first record of ballad as a light, simple song in 1458, in a will from York;^[6] Etymonline also dates the word to the late 15th century.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant a song meant to go with a dance,^[9][6] a sense recorded in English from 1508, in Dunbar, and now rare.^[6] From the 16th century it was used for popular songs, usually narrative, that celebrated or mocked people and institutions (1554),^[6] while from 1529 to 1616 it also named a proverbial saying in a couplet.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "a song", quoting Isaac Watts: the word had once named solemn and sacred songs too, so that Solomon's Song was called "the ballad of ballads", but was now used only of trifling verse.^[12] The literary sense, a narrative poem in short stanzas that tells a popular story, is recorded from 1751, in Johnson's Rambler;^[6][8] Etymonline puts it in the 17th century.^[9] In jazz and popular music, a ballad has been a slow, usually sentimental song since 1944.^[6] In West Indian and Black British slang it also means a long, complicated story (1956, in Sam Selvon), and in American gay slang an excuse (1972).^[13] The verb, to make a ballad about someone, is recorded from 1606, in Chapman.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1393 – balade, a poem in stanzas, in Gower.^[7]
• c. 1450 – verb, to compose ballads (obsolete by 1631).^[6]
• 1458 – a light, simple song.^[6]
• 1508 – a song to accompany a dance.^[6]
• 1529 – a proverbial saying in a couplet (obsolete by 1616).^[6]
• 1554 – a popular, usually narrative, song.^[6]
• 1606 – verb, to make the subject of a ballad.^[6]
• 1751 – a narrative poem in short stanzas.^[6]
• 1944 – a slow, sentimental popular song.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A narrative poem or song in short stanzas, often of popular origin and handed down orally, sometimes with a refrain: an old border ballad about a cattle raid.^[14][3][6]
2. A slow, usually sentimental or romantic song, especially in pop or jazz: The band closed the concert with a ballad.^[14][6]
3. A light, simple song of any kind.^[6][15]
4. (rare) A song to accompany a dance.^[6][3]

Word family

• balladic
• balladlike
• balladist
• balladize
• balladry
• balladeer
• balladmonger
• ballad opera

Related words

• ballade
• ball
• ballet
• ballot

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press