What does the french word sonnet mean?

The sonnet ( same Word in French and in English) is one of several forms of poetry originating in Europe. The term "sonnet" means "little song".

By the thirteenth century, it had come to signify a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strictrhyme scheme and specific structure. The conventions associated with the Sonnet have evolved over its history.

One of the best-known sonnet writers is William Shakespeare, who wrote 154 of them (not including those that appear in his plays). A Shakespearean, or English, sonnet consists of 14 lines, each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter, in which a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g; the last two lines are a rhyming couplet.