machicotage

Noun.  (rare, archaic) A style of singing, especially of sacred music, cultivated from the late Middle Ages until the 19th century, centered on Paris, and derived from the Gallican ritual; in this style vocal lines are decorated with improvised ornamentation, and differentiated from each other in a polyphonic composition also by tone color.

This is an unmodified, but possibly outdated, definition from Wiktionary and used here under the Creative Commons license. Wiktionary is a great resource. If you like it too, please donate to Wikimedia.

This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.