Gavotte Meaning: The French Dance, Its Music & Pronunciation

A gavotte is an old French dance — and the music written for it. It began as a lively peasant dance in the south of France, became the fashionable dance of the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV, and then lived on as a movement in the Baroque suite, in the music of Bach, Rameau, and Couperin. If you have ever heard a bright, graceful piece in a Baroque suite that seems to start a half-step ahead of the beat, you may well have heard a gavotte.

What is a gavotte?

Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries defines gavotte simply: “a French dance that was popular in the past; a piece of music for this dance.” That two-part definition is the key to the word, because a gavotte is always both things at once — a dance and a tune. You can dance a gavotte, and you can play one. In modern use, the musical sense is the more common: a gavotte is a short piece, or a movement inside a larger suite, written in the rhythm of the dance.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica describes it as a “lively peasants’ kissing dance that became fashionable at the 17th- and 18th-century courts of France and England”. The Oxford Dictionary of Music adds the detail that makes a gavotte recognisable: it is an old French dance in common time that begins on the third beat of the bar. That half-bar upbeat — the music starting, in effect, halfway through the measure — is the gavotte’s fingerprint.

How to pronounce gavotte

Gavotte is pronounced guh-VOT, with the stress on the second syllable. The UK pronunciation is /ɡəˈvɒt/ and the US pronunciation is /ɡəˈvɑːt/. The final e is silent, as in most French loanwords, and the double t is pronounced as a single t sound.

English speakers sometimes pronounce it “GAV-ot”, with the stress on the first syllable, or “gav-OTT-ee”, sounding the final e. Both are wrong. Keep the stress on the second syllable and leave the final e silent: guh-VOT. The word is a noun; it can also be used as a verb meaning to dance a gavotte (“they gavotted across the floor”), though that use is rare today.

Variant spellings exist — gavot and gavote are recorded as older or alternative forms, and the Italian form is gavotta — but gavotte is the standard modern spelling in English.

Where the gavotte comes from

The gavotte takes its name from the Gavots, the people of the Pays de Gap, a mountain region of Dauphiné in south-east France. According to Britannica, it was supposedly originated by the natives of Gap, and danced in royal ballrooms as a round with skipping steps adapted from the branle, an older group dance. The word itself comes from Old Provençal gavoto, meaning a mountaineer’s dance, from gavot, a local name for an Alpine resident.

The dance is first mentioned in the late 16th century as the last of a suite of branles — a set of dances performed in a line or circle. From those folk beginnings it travelled fast. By the reign of Louis XIV it was a court dance, and the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully wrote several gavottes for the king’s entertainments. It stayed fashionable through the 18th century, reappearing under Marie Antoinette, and remained a favourite court dance under Louis XVI.

The gavotte in music

The gavotte’s second life was musical. Once composers began writing suites — collections of dance movements — the gavotte became one of the optional movements, grouped with the other galanteries that followed the core dances of allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. Bach included gavottes in his suites and partitas, and Rameau and Couperin wrote many; later composers such as Prokofiev and Schoenberg used the form too.

Musically, a gavotte has three defining features:

• Duple time. It is notated in 4/4 or 2/2 time and is of moderate tempo — lively but dignified, never frantic.
• The half-bar upbeat. Its phrases begin in the middle of the bar, on the third beat, creating a half-measure upbeat. Each part finishes with a half-bar containing a single long note rather than two shorter ones.
• Binary form. Like most Baroque dance movements, a gavotte is usually in two repeated sections, each played twice.

That upbeat is what gives the gavotte its particular lift. Where a minuet feels stately and grounded, starting firmly on the first beat, a gavotte seems to arrive already in motion. The basic step, as described by the 16th-century dancing master Thoinot Arbeau, was that of the double branle, with the feet crossed twice in each step pattern and each step followed by a hop.

Gavotte vs minuet: what’s the difference?

The gavotte is often confused with the minuet, its more famous neighbour in the Baroque suite. Both are graceful French court dances, both appear in suites, and both are in moderate tempo. But they are easy to tell apart once you know what to listen for.

Feature	Gavotte	Minuet
Time signature	Duple time — 4/4 or 2/2	Triple time — 3/4
Where phrases begin	On the third beat (half-bar upbeat)	On the first beat of the bar
Character	Lively, bright, with skipping steps and hops	Stately, elegant, gliding steps
Origin	Peasant dance of the Pays de Gap	French folk dance, later a court dance
Place in the suite	An optional galanterie, often after the sarabande	Usually placed before the final gigue

If you can count along, the test is simple: a minuet goes one-two-three, one-two-three. A gavotte goes in four, and the tune seems to begin on beat three. Once you hear the difference, you will not mix them up again.

Correct vs incorrect usage

Correct	Incorrect	Why
The orchestra played a gavotte from Bach’s third suite.	The orchestra played a gavotte in waltz time.	A gavotte is in duple time (4/4 or 2/2), not the triple time of a waltz.
She danced a gavotte at the Baroque ball.	She danced a gavotte at the disco.	A gavotte is a historical dance; the sentence is not wrong grammatically, but the context makes no sense — it belongs to Baroque and folk settings.
The gavotte begins on the third beat of the bar.	The gavotte begins on the first beat of the bar.	The half-bar upbeat is the gavotte’s defining feature.
They gavotted across the ballroom floor.	They gavotte across the ballroom floor.	Past tense needs the doubled t and -ed: gavotted (or gavoted in American spelling, by analogy with similar verbs — British usage prefers gavotted).

Common mistakes with gavotte

Pronouncing the final e

The most common error is sounding the final e — “gav-OTT-ee”. The word is French, and the final e is silent. Two syllables, stress on the second: guh-VOT.

Calling any old dance a gavotte

Gavotte is sometimes used loosely for any elegant old dance, but it names one specific dance with a specific rhythm. A minuet, a sarabande, and a gavotte are different dances, and calling one by another’s name is a real error, not a matter of taste.

Assuming it is only a dance

Because the word entered English as the name of a dance, many people are surprised to learn that a gavotte is also a piece of music. In fact, most modern encounters with the word are musical — a movement in a suite, a piece on a concert programme, a track on a classical recording. Both senses are standard, and both are worth knowing.

Confusing the origin story

Some popular sources describe the gavotte as a dance in triple time, or as originating in Brittany. The reference works disagree on the finer points of origin — Wikipedia notes the debate — but the standard dictionary account is clear: a French dance of the Pays de Gap, in duple time, beginning on the third beat of the bar. Triple-time descriptions of the gavotte are an error, and this article follows the dictionary and encyclopedia accounts rather than the looser web sources.

Examples of gavotte in real sentences

• The orchestra opened the second half with a gavotte by Rameau.
• At the court of Louis XIV, the gavotte was danced after supper, with couples forming a circle on the polished floor.
• She recognised the gavotte at once from its half-bar upbeat.
• The dancers rehearsed the gavotte for weeks, practising the crossing steps and the hop that ends each pattern.
• A gavotte is lighter than a sarabande and livelier than a minuet.
• The composer slipped a gavotte into the middle of the suite, between the sarabande and the gigue.
• In the village, old men still danced the gavotte at weddings, just as their grandfathers had.

Frequently asked questions

What is a gavotte in simple terms?

An old French dance, and the music written for it. It is lively and graceful, in 4/4 time, and its tunes characteristically start on the third beat of the bar.

How do you pronounce gavotte?

UK /ɡəˈvɒt/, US /ɡəˈvɑːt/ — guh-VOT, stress on the second syllable, final e silent.

Is a gavotte a dance or a piece of music?

Both. It began as a dance, and composers then wrote music in its rhythm. Today you are more likely to meet the word on a concert programme than on a dance floor, but both uses are correct.

What is the difference between a gavotte and a minuet?

A gavotte is in duple time (4/4) and begins on the third beat; a minuet is in triple time (3/4) and begins on the first beat. The gavotte is livelier, with skipping steps and hops; the minuet is statelier.

Where does the word gavotte come from?

From French gavotte, from Old Provençal gavoto, a mountaineer’s dance, named after the Gavots, the people of the Pays de Gap in south-east France. It entered English in the 1690s.

Is the gavotte still danced today?

Yes, in folk dancing — traditional gavottes are still danced in Brittany, where they are a living folk tradition — and in Baroque dance, where historical dance groups reconstruct the court gavotte. In classical music it remains a familiar suite movement.

The takeaway

A gavotte is a French dance in duple time and the music written for it — a peasant dance from the Pays de Gap that rose to the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV and then settled into the Baroque suite. Pronounce it guh-VOT, remember the half-bar upbeat that sets it apart from the minuet, and do not confuse it with any other elegant old dance. It is a small word with a long history, and it still turns up wherever Baroque music is played — a reminder that dance and music were once the same thing.