Word of the Day Aubade

Word of the Day for Tuesday March 21, 2006
aubade \oh-BAHD\, noun:A song or poem greeting the dawn; also, a composition suggestive of morning.

He was usually still awake when the birds began to warble their aubade.-- Christopher Buckley, "What was Robert Benchley?," National Review, June 16, 1997
And there he lingered till the crowing cock...Sang his aubade with lusty voice and clear.-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emma and Eginhard

Aubade comes from the French, from aube, dawn + the noun suffix -ade: aube ultimately derives from Latin albus, white, pale, as in "alba lux," the "pale light" of dawn.