Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Rondeau \Ron*deau"\, n. [F. See {Roundel}.] [Written also
   {rondo}.]
   1. A species of lyric poetry so composed as to contain a
      refrain or repetition which recurs according to a fixed
      law, and a limited number of rhymes recurring also by
      rule.

   Note: When the rondeau was called the rondel it was mostly
         written in fourteen octosyllabic lines of two rhymes,
         as in the rondels of Charles d'Orleans. . . . In the
         17th century the approved form of the rondeau was a
         structure of thirteen verses with a refrain. --Encyc.
         Brit.

   2. (Mus.) See {Rondo}, 1.

Source : WordNet®

rondeau
     n 1: a musical form that is often the last movement of a sonata
          [syn: {rondo}]
     2: a French verse form of 10 or 13 lines running on two rhymes;
        the opening phrase is repeated as the refrain of the
        second and third stanzas [syn: {rondel}]
     [also: {rondeaux} (pl)]