Burdoun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A low, sustained bass drone played or sung beneath a melody, especially in older folk and medieval music
2. The deep continuous background tone that accompanies a tune, often sounded by pipes or voices in older music
3. An archaic term for the sustained bass sound that underlies and accompanies a melody in traditional song

Etymology: The sound of the word comes first. Medieval Latin "burdo" meant a bumblebee or drone, and that buzzing image passed into French as "bourdon," which named a low, unvarying bass note sounded under a melody, as on bagpipes. English borrowed the musical sense in its Middle English form, "burdoun." Once in English, the term tangled with a different word. "Burden" meaning a load comes from Old English "byrthen," which is unrelated. Because the two words sounded alike, the musical sense of "burdoun" was reshaped into "burden," and its meaning shifted from the continuous bass drone to a repeated refrain sung at the end of each verse. The two unrelated words now share a spelling, though only one of them was ever about carrying weight.

Synonyms: drone, bourdon, refrain