Glee
A composition for three or more voice without accompaniment. The glee differs from the madrigal, its predecessor, in being constructed more on the harmonic than the contrapuntal system; i.e., admits dominant, dissonances, and second inversions. The glee is the most distinctive form of English music. The best glees belong to the eighteenth century and the first part of the nineteenth. They have been largely superseded by the part-song.