galliard

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A lively dance, popular in 16th- and 17th-century Europe.

   “[…] sweet to us it is to behold delightful dancing, be it the stately splendour of the Pavane which progresseth as large clouds at sun-down that pass by in splendour; or the graceful Allemande; or the Fandango, which goeth by degrees from languorous beauty to the swiftness and passion of Bacchanals dancing on the high lawns under a summer moon that hangeth in the pine trees; or the joyous maze of the Galliard; or the Gigue, dear to the Foliots.”

2. (countable, uncountable)The triple-time music for this dance.
3. (countable, dated, uncountable)A brisk, merry person.

   “Thus every Gibelline hath got his Guelf ; But Selden he's a Galliard by himself ; And well may be ; there's more Divines in him , Than in all this their Jewish Sanhedrim ;”

   “I will be answerable that this galliard meant but some St. Valentine's jest.”

   “He was still an old galliard, with white Buffalo Bill vandyke, and he swanked around, still healthy of flesh, in white suits, looking things over with big sex-amused eyes.”

4. (dated, uncountable)An intermediate size of type alternatively equated with brevier (by Didot points) or bourgeois (by Fournier points and by size).

adj

1. (dated)Gay; brisk; active.