[Constitution Day]

There's always an interesting or new word to me in Lileks's columns.
This one was unfamiliar to me:

ga•votte [guh-vot]

–noun

1. an old French dance in moderately quick quadruple meter.
2. a piece of music for, or in the rhythm of, this dance, often forming one of the movements in the classical suite, usually following the saraband.

Also, ga•vot.

---

[Origin: 1690–1700; < F < Pr gavoto a mountaineer of Provence, a dance of such mountaineers, appar. deriv. of gava bird's crop (prob. < pre-L *gaba throat, crop, goiter), alluding to the prevalence of goiter among the mountaineers]

[RightWhale]

The progression through the cadence is designed to be somewhat deceptive as to the location of the downbeat thereby giving the dance a liveliness that would be missing otherwise since the pace is not at all rapid.