bourrée

[ boo-rey; French boo-rey ]

noun

, plural bour·rées [b, oo, -, reyz, boo-, rey].

1. an old French and Spanish dance, somewhat like a gavotte.
2. the music for it.

bourrée

/ ˈbʊəreɪ /

noun

1. a traditional French dance in fast duple time, resembling a gavotte
2. a piece of music composed in the rhythm of this dance

Word History and Origins

Origin of bourrée¹

1700–10; < French: literally, bundle of brushwood, originally, the twigs with which the bundle was stuffed (the dance may once have been done around brushwood bonfires); noun use of past participle (feminine) of bourrer to stuff, fill, verbal derivative of bourre hair, fluff < Late Latin burra wool, coarse fabric

Word History and Origins

Origin of bourrée¹

C18: from French bourrée a bundle of faggots (it was originally danced round a fire of faggots)

Example Sentences

“That’s your pas de bourrée, your pas de gavotte.”

From New York Times

Jackson’s moonwalk, for example, “reminds me of a ballerina with a brilliant bourrée,” he says.

From Washington Post

In concert, McCartney has been known to locate the song's melody to a much earlier period in the 1950s, when he and George Harrison, wanting to show off their guitar skills, tried their hand at playing Bach's Bourrée in E Minor.

From Salon

“How you interpret it, how you feel the rise and fall of it, that’s up to you,” she told a group of students, ages 12 to 17, referring to the back-side-side footwork of a pas de bourrée, a structured preface to “freestyle snow.”

From New York Times

In a week she learned the jaunty Bourrée from Bach’s Cello Suite No. Three; soon she had developed her own little vibrato.

From Los Angeles Times