fugue

See also: fugué

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French fugue, from Italian fuga (“flight, ardor”), from Latin fuga (“act of fleeing”), from fugiō (“to flee”); compare Ancient Greek φυγή (phugḗ). Apparently from the metaphor that the first part starts alone on its course, and is pursued by later parts. Doublet of fuga.

Pronunciation

• (MLE) IPA^(key): /ˈfyɡ/
• IPA^(key): /ˈfjuːɡ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːɡ

Noun

fugue (plural fugues)

1. (music) A contrapuntal piece of music wherein a particular melody is played in a number of voices, each voice introduced in turn by playing the melody.

   Synonym: fuga (dated)

2. Anything in literature, poetry, film, painting, etc., that resembles a fugue in structure or in its elaborate complexity and formality.
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 175:

     Jacobsen's theory about the empty storehouse is still valid, for a myth never has one meaning only; a myth is a polyphonic fugue of many voices.

3. (psychiatry) A fugue state.

Derived terms

• counterfugue
• double fugue
• fugal
• fuguelike
• fuguist
• mirror fugue

Related terms

• fugacious
• fugue state

Translations

piece of music

Arabic: فُوغَا f (fūḡā), فُوغَا f (fūgā) Armenian: ֆուգա (hy) (fuga) Azerbaijani: fuqa Belarusian: фуга f (fuha) Bulgarian: фуга (bg) f (fuga) Catalan: fuga (ca) f Chinese: Mandarin: 賦格 / 赋格 (zh) (fùgé) Czech: fuga (cs) f Danish: fuga c Dutch: fuga (nl) m or f Esperanto: fugo Estonian: fuuga Finnish: fuuga (fi) French: fugue (fr) f Friulian: fughe f Georgian: ფუგა (puga) German: Fuge (de) f Greek: φούγκα (el) f (foúgka), φυγή (el) f (fygí) Hebrew: פוּגָה (he) Hungarian: fúga (hu) Icelandic: fúga f Ido: fugo (io) Italian: fuga (it) f Japanese: 遁走曲 (とんそうきょく, tonsōkyoku), フーガ (fūga) Korean: 푸가 (puga) Latin: contrāpunctus m Latvian: please add this translation if you can Lithuanian: fuga Macedonian: фуга f (fuga) Occitan: fuga f Persian: فوگ (fug) Piedmontese: please add this translation if you can Polish: fuga (pl) f Portuguese: fuga (pt) f Romanian: fugă (ro) f Russian: фу́га (ru) f (fúga) Slovak: fúga Slovene: fuga f Spanish: fuga (es) f Swedish: fuga (sv) c Thai: please add this translation if you can Turkish: füg (tr) Ukrainian: please add this translation if you can Uzbek: fuga (uz) Vietnamese: tẩu pháp Walloon: please add this translation if you can

anything in literature, poetry, film, painting, etc., that resembles a fugue in structure or complexity

German: Fuge (de) f Greek: φυγή (el) f (fygí) Polish: fuga (pl) f Russian: фу́га (ru) f (fúga) Slovene: fuga f

Verb

fugue (third-person singular simple present fugues, present participle fuguing, simple past and past participle fugued)

1. To improvise, in singing, by introducing vocal ornamentation to fill gaps etc.
2. (intransitive) To spend time in a dissociative fugue state.
   • 2014, Richard D. Dalrymple, Fugue, page 33:

     And most of them women, and these only stayed in a fugue state for a relatively short time, like a couple of hours or a couple of days. As far as we know Malenov fugued for close to twenty years.

   • 2021, Robin Wasserman, Mother Daughter Widow Wife, page 87:

     Fugue states can have phases—it's possible she fugued from the start, and only woke to what was happening on that bus.

See also

• fugue on Wikipedia.Wikipedia