seguidilla

[ sey-guh-deel-yuh, -dee-yuh, seg-uh-; Spanish se-gee-thee-lyah ]

noun

, plural se·gui·dil·las [sey-g, uh, -, deel, -y, uh, z, -, dee, -y, uh, z, se-gee-, thee, -lyahs].

1. Prosody. a stanza of four to seven lines with a distinctive rhythmic pattern.
2. a Spanish dance in triple meter for two persons.
3. the music for this dance.

seguidilla

/ ˌsɛɡɪˈdiːljə /

noun

1. a Spanish dance in a fast triple rhythm
2. a piece of music composed for or in the rhythm of this dance
3. prosody a stanzaic form consisting of four to seven lines and marked by a characteristic rhythm

Word History and Origins

Origin of seguidilla¹

1755–65; < Spanish, equivalent to seguid ( a ) sequence ( segui- (stem of seguir ≪ Latin sequī to follow) + -da < Latin -ta feminine past participle suffix) + -illa diminutive suffix

Word History and Origins

Origin of seguidilla¹

Spanish: a little dance, from seguida a dance, from seguir to follow, from Latin sequī

Example Sentences

Musically, the show has the easy, informal delight of a cabaret, moving breezily between spoken stretches and arias from “Carmen”; we hear “Parle-moi de ma mère,” the “Seguidilla,” “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée” and, of course, the “Habanera,” each enhanced by a certain meta-charm.

From Washington Post

We’d do the Seguidilla from “Carmen” and she’d explain that that was plea bargaining.

From New York Times

There were romances and the early, original forms of all those Spanish dances that went on to pervade Europe and the world at large, such as the fandango and seguidilla.

From Los Angeles Times

Frederick Ballentine, a promising tenor, had especially heavy lifting with “E lucevan le stele” from “Tosca,” the Seguidilla scene from “Carmen” and a painful aria from Philip Glass’s “Appomattox,” the opera presented here so successfully in 2015, recounting the Ku Klux Klan’s slaughter of a hundred black militiamen.

From Washington Post

Consider the first act, in which Carmen’s famous Habanera and Seguidilla lay out her seductive powers and relationship to the world around her.

From New York Times