aubade

English

WOTD – 24 October 2022

Etymology

PIE word
*albʰós

Verses from an 1863 aubade or poem evoking the dawn (sense 1) by the Galician poet Rosalía de Castro (1837–1885) inscribed on a monument in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The first verse of the poem reads: “I was born when plants are born, / In the month in which the flowers are born, / In a serene dawn, / On an April dawn.”

An aubade or morning concert (sense 2) held on 19 February 1947 in Batavia, Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia), to celebrate the birth of Princess Christina of the Netherlands.

Borrowed from French aubade, from Old French albade, from Old Spanish albada (“musical or poetic composition to be performed in the morning”), from alba (“dawn”), from Vulgar Latin *alba (“dawn; sunrise”), from Latin albus (“bright, clear; white”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *albʰós (“white”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əʊˈbɑːd/, /-ˈbæd/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /oʊˈbɑd/
• Rhymes: -ɑːd, -æd
• Hyphenation: au‧bade

Noun

aubade (plural aubades)

1. (music, poetry) A poem or song evoking or greeting the dawn or early morning.
   • 1873 August, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[I. Tales of a Wayside Inn.] The Student’s Tale. Emma and Eginhard.”, in Aftermath, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 27:

     And there he lingered till the crowing cock, / The Alectryon of the farmyard and the flock, / Sang his aubade with lusty voice and clear, / To tell the sleeping world that dawn was near.

   • 1956, Anthony Burgess, chapter 11, in Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), London: William Heinemann, published 1968, →ISBN, page 155:

     Alladad Khan woke to the far crying of kampong cocks in the dark. That noise had been the farmyard aubade in the Punjab in his dream.

   1. (music, specifically) A morning love song, or a song of lovers parting in the morning.
2. (music) A concert held at dawn or in the morning, especially outdoors.

Coordinate terms

• nocturne
• serenade

Translations

poem or song evoking or greeting the dawn or early morning

• Breton: beuregan
• Bulgarian: алборада (alborada)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 晨歌 (zh) (chéngē)

• Czech: aubade
• Dutch: aubade (nl) f
• Esperanto: aŭbado
• Finnish: aamuruno (poem), aamulaulu (song)
• French: aubade (fr) f
• Galician: alborada (gl) f
• German: Aubade (de) f
• Indonesian: aubadê (id)
• Italian: aubade f
• Japanese: オーバード
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: aubade

• Romanian: aubadă
• Russian: обада (ru) (obada), альборада (ru) f (alʹborada)
• Spanish: albada (es) f, alborada (es)
• Swedish: aubade
• Ukrainian: альборада f (alʹborada)

morning love song; song of lovers parting in the morning

• Dutch: aubade (nl) f (archaic, historical)
• Esperanto: aŭbado
• Finnish: aamun rakkauslaulu
• French: aubade (fr) f
• Indonesian: aubadê (id)
• Spanish: alborada (es)

concert held at dawn or in the morning, especially outdoors

• Dutch: aubade (nl) f (to honour someone)
• Finnish: aamukonsertti
• Indonesian: aubadê (id) (to honour someone)

Further reading

• aubade on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French aubade, from Middle French aubade, from Old Occitan aubada.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌoːˈbaː.də/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: au‧ba‧de
• Rhymes: -aːdə

Noun

aubade f (plural aubades)

1. A song or musical performance to honour someone, performed in the morning.
2. (uncommon, chiefly historical) An aubade, a morning love song.

Related terms

• albino
• album
• albumen

Descendants

• → Indonesian: aubade

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French albade.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /o.bad/

• Audio

  (file)

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

Noun

aubade f (plural aubades)

1. aubade (song; poem)
2. aubade (love song)

Descendants

• → Dutch: aubade
  • → Indonesian: aubade
• → English: aubade

Further reading

• “aubade”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Indonesian

Etymology

From Dutch aubade, from French aubade, from Old French albade.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [au̯ˈbadə]
• Hyphenation: au‧ba‧dê

Noun

aubadê (first-person possessive aubadeku, second-person possessive aubademu, third-person possessive aubadenya)

1. aubade:
   1. a song or poem greeting or evoking the dawn.
   2. a morning love song; a song of lovers parting in the morning.
2. a song or musical performance to honour someone, performed in the morning.

Further reading

• “aubade” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation — Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic Indonesia, 2016.