vil·la·nelle

n. A 19-line poem of fixed form consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain on two rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain.

[French, from Italian villanella, from feminine of villanello, rustic, from villano, peasant, from Vulgar Latin *vllnus, from Latin vlla, country house.]