From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmotetmo‧tet /məʊˈtet $ moʊ-/ noun [countable] a piece of music on a religious subject
Examples from the Corpus
motet• Mozart had become acquainted with the choirmaster there, Anton Stoll, for whom he wrote the exquisite motet Ave verum corpus.• Latin motets alongside modern crowd-pullers - which brings us back to hymn-singing, where we began.• He transferred the technique to his petits motets, and then to his cantatas.• The motet was replaced by the two forms of anthem, the Mass by the Service.• Five masses and two motets survive.• They are essentially wordless motets, each polyphonic section neatly dovetailed into the next.Origin motet (1300-1400) Old French mot “word” 