From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmadrigalmad‧ri‧gal /ˈmædrɪɡəl/ noun [countable] APMa song for several singers without musical instruments, popular in the 16th century
Examples from the Corpus
madrigal• The verse sounds like a madrigal, the chorus like a party.• Gesualdo's later madrigals, however fascinating their scent of decadence, are an evolutionary dead end.• Strange the tricks that life plays, I mused as I drove home, popping the tape of madrigals into the player.• The movement of the tide is well illustrated by the successive books of Monteverdi's madrigals.• The distinction, if any, was in the less frivolous nature and superior literary quality of the madrigal texts.• The madrigal was polyphonic but not purely polyphonic.• A heavily revised version of this madrigal was included in Morley's collection.• In practice this meant medieval mystery plays at York, madrigals on the river at Cambridge, and the Edinburgh Festival.Origin madrigal (1500-1600) Italian madrigale, from Late Latin matricalis “of the womb, simple”, from Latin matrix; → MATRIX 