rondel
(ˈrɒndəl)
Also 4 rondeal, 5 -delle, 6–7 rondell.
[a. older F. rondel masc. (later rondeau: see prec.), or rondelle fem., f. rond round a. Cf. roundel and rundle.]
1. A circle; a circular object. Now arch. † Also spec. a round shield; the midriff.
The precise sense in quot. 1630 is not clear.
| c 1290 St. Michael 452 in S. Eng. Leg. I. 312 A luyte rondel ase a sikel Men seoth þar-on liȝt. 1486 Bk. St. Albans e viij, In the mydref that callid is the rondell also. 1529 More Dyaloge ii. Wks. 188/2 The ayre striken w{supt} the breth of the spiker, & equally rolling forth in rondels to the eares of the hearers. 1549 Compl. Scot. vi. 42 Mak reddy ȝour..halbardis, rondellis, tua handit sourdis and tairgis. 1593 Queen Elizabeth Boeth. 113 Hast thou not thus wrapt a rondell [L. orbem] of dyvine sinceritie? 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. i. 654 They give a jirke, as if a twig bended into a rondle were sodainly let go. 1630 B. Jonson New Inn i. vi, Chalk, and renew the rondels, I am now Resolved to stay. 1871 R. Ellis Catullus xvii. 26 As some mule [leaves] in a glutinous sludge her rondel of iron. |
† b. Fortif. A round tower. Obs.
| 1686 Lond. Gaz. No. 2159/1 The Duke of Lorrain's Attack embraces three Rondels or Towers. 1687 B. Randolph Archipelago 2 The maine castle is..fortified with six very large towers or rondells. 1704 J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Rondel, in Fortification, is a round Tower sometimes erected at the Foot of the Bastions. [Hence in later Dicts.] |
† c. A round or rung of a ladder. Obs.
| 1723 Briton No. 6 And make their Vices the only Rondels whereby they mount the Ladder of tow'ring Preferment. |
2. A rondeau, or a special form of this.
| 1390 Gower Conf. I. 133 He can carolles make, Rondeal, balade and virelai. a 1450 Knt. de la Tour (1868) 1, Y made for her loue songges, balades, rondelles, virallayes, and diuerse nwe thinges. 1604 E. G[rimstone] D'Acosta's Hist. Indies vi. xxviii. 492 They haue likewise put our compositions of musicke into their language, as Octaves, Songs, and Rondells. 1811 Busby Dict. Mus. (ed. 3) s.v. Roundelay, Some writers speak of the Roundelay, or Rondel, as a kind of air appropriated to dancing. 1887 Gleeson White Ball. & Rondeau Introd. p. lviii, In its origin the rondel was a lyric of two verses... With Charles d'Orléans the rondel took the distinct shape..of fourteen lines on two rhymes. Ibid., Nor are these rondel-triolets exceptions; they are quite common till the beginning of the fifeenth century. |