galliard

plural galliards · alternative gaillard

1. countableuncountableA lively dance, popular in 16th- and 17th-century Europe.

   1 more example

   […] sweet to us it is to behold delightful dancing, be it the stately splendour of the Pavane which progresseth as large clouds at sun-down that pass by in splendour; or the graceful Allemande; or the Fandango, which goeth by degrees from languorous beauty to the swiftness and passion of Bacchanals dancing on the high lawns under a summer moon that hangeth in the pine trees; or the joyous maze of the Galliard; or the Gigue, dear to the Foliots.

   1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 33

2. countableuncountableentertainmentThe triple-time music for this dance.
3. countabledateduncountableA brisk, merry person.

   I will be answerable that this galliard meant but some St. Valentine's jest.

   1828, Sir Walter Scott, The Fair Maid of Perth

   2 more examples

   Thus every Gibelline hath got his Guelf ; But Selden he's a Galliard by himself ; And well may be ; there's more Divines in him , Than in all this their Jewish Sanhedrim ;

   1647, John Cleveland, “The Mixt Assembly”, in The character of a London-diurnall with severall select poems, page 36 1647, keyboarded 1687, scanned

   He was still an old galliard, with white Buffalo Bill vandyke, and he swanked around, still healthy of flesh, in white suits, looking things over with big sex-amused eyes.

   1953 September 18, Saul Bellow, chapter V, in The Adventures of Augie March […], New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, →OCLC

4. dateduncountableContinental printingAn intermediate size of type alternatively equated with brevier (by Didot points) or bourgeois (by Fournier points and by size).

comparative more galliard · superlative most galliard · alternative gaillard

1. datedGay; brisk; active.