canto
Americannoun
noun
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music another word for cantus
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a main division of a long poem
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of canto
1580–90; < Italian < Latin cant ( us ) singing, song, equivalent to can ( ere ) to sing + -tus suffix of v. action; cf. cant 1, chant
Explanation
Long books have chapters. Long poems do, too. But a chapter in a long poem is called a canto. There are several famous poems that are divided into cantos, including Dante's Divine Comedy, Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and Byron's Don Juan. Canto is an Italian word coming from Latin which means song or singing. From Italian it was borrowed in English to mean a section of a poem.
Vocabulary lists containing canto
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Poetry: Structure and Meter
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Reading: Literature - Poetry - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Tina Brown called American Canto “absurdly pretentious,” wincing at its repeated invocations of Joan Didion’s unsettling Santa Ana winds.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 6, 2025
But the American Canto announcement, along with the recent New York Times and Vanity Fair pieces, nullified that handshake agreement in his eyes.
From Slate • Nov. 19, 2025
The Oscar winner, who played Storm in the comic-book-based film franchise, commemorated Canto on Tuesday on Instagram by sharing a photo of the late actor.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 10, 2024
Berry also shared the screen with Canto in the 2020 Netflix drama “Bruised.”
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 10, 2024
“Good to find another person who knows what a Canto knot is. But I travel a lot, my friend. I see and know a lot of people, people who I might not be affiliated with.”
From "Legend" by Marie Lu
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
