fugue

Meanings

1. 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.
2. Anything in literature, poetry, film, painting, etc., that resembles a fugue in structure or in its elaborate complexity and formality.
3. A fugue state.

1. To improvise, in singing, by introducing vocal ornamentation to fill gaps etc.
2. To spend time in a dissociative fugue state.

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.