Madrigal [noun]

She sat down at the spinet and played a little madrigal by Orlando Gibbons that was associated with her earliest childhood.

Perhaps she would soon be down—should he write the madrigal he had promised her?

Every man tried his hand at verses, and learned to sing a madrigal, and tinkle the accompaniment with his own fingers.

These were days when the proa went shouting across the empty southern seas to madrigal and choric song.

She seemed to belong rightly to a madrigal—to require viewing through rhyme and harmony.

His gay maidens, were they at this moment singing over some new madrigal prepared to greet him on his return?

Flinging myself on the grass, close to the brook, I began to warble a rustic madrigal.

The word “madrigal” is frequently also used to designate a sentimental or trifling expression in a half-contemptuous sense.

But this does not indicate any continuation of the true musical history of the madrigal.

The greatest classics in the madrigal style are those of Italy; and but little, if at all, below them come the English.