opus
Americannoun
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a musical composition.
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one of the compositions of a composer, usually numbered according to the order of publication.
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a literary work or composition, as a book: op.
Have you read her latest opus?
noun
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an artistic composition, esp a musical work
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(often capital) (usually followed by a number) a musical composition by a particular composer, generally catalogued in order of publication
Beethoven's opus 61 is his violin concerto
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of opus
1695–1705; < Latin: work, labor, a work
Explanation
An opus is a created work, usually musical in nature. The composer's greatest opus was inspired by the blooming of the spring flowers. While an opus is a piece of work, usually musical, the best way to remember it is to know that the preferred plural of opus is opera which everyone associates with music. You can also say opuses for the plural if you want, but how is that going to help you remember anything? A common usage of opus is with the term magnum opus which refers to one’s greatest work, musical or otherwise.
Vocabulary lists containing opus
100 SAT words Beginning with "O"
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Music - Middle School
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Music - 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.
When given further instructions, Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.2 can match Mythos in bug-finding ability, according to researchers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 28, 2026
It said Opus 4.7 had shown half the sycophancy rate of Opus 4.6 when it came to relationship guidance.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 27, 2026
Anthropic’s own research revealed that tuning its Opus 4.7 model to be less verbose inadvertently resulted in a drop in coding intelligence.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 19, 2026
The researchers observed similar patterns in GPT-5, Claude Opus 4.1, and Gemini 2.5.
From Science Daily • Jun. 10, 2026
If nothing else, he now understood why he couldn’t raise money for Milton’s Opus.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
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.
