Word of the Day Archive
Sunday April 23, 2000
aubade \oh-BAHD\
, noun:
A song or poem greeting the dawn; also, a composition suggestive of morning.
He was usually still awake when the birds began to warble their aubade.
-- Christopher Buckley, "What was Robert Benchley?", National Review, June 16, 1997
And there he lingered till the crowing cock...
Sang his aubade with lusty voice and clear.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emma and Eginhard
Gwynn was up the back, playing a soft aubade on the piano that Feni had installed years ago when business was brisker and he could afford to pay entertainers.
-- K.J. Bishop, The Etched City
Aubade comes from the French, from aube, dawn + the noun suffix -ade: aube ultimately derives from Latin albus, white, pale, as in "alba lux," the "pale light" of dawn.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for aubade
