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fioritura

American  
[fee-awr-i-toor-uh, -ohr-, fyaw-ree-too-rah] / fiˌɔr ɪˈtʊər ə, -ˌoʊr-, ˌfjɔ riˈtu rɑ /

noun

Music.
  • fioriture
    plural
  1. the ornamentation of a melody, often extemporized by the performer, as in Italian opera during the 18th century.


fioritura British  
/ ˌfjɔːrɪˈtʊərə, ˌfiːərɪ- /

noun

  1. music embellishment, esp ornamentation added by the performer

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

Etymology

Origin of fioritura

1835–45; < Italian, equivalent to fiorit ( o ) flowery, originally past participle of fiorire to flower + -ura -ure

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.

See Examples For:

The only reason to pluck it from obscurity now is to afford a singing actress like Sills the dual opportunity to make life look difficult and bel canto fioritura easy.

From Time Magazine Archive

But the high, falsetto fioritura of the singers is difficult to take at the start, even if it is the Chinese ideal of good singing.

From Time Magazine Archive

His tone is very sonorous, his touch singing, and he commands the entire range of nuance from the rippling fioritura of the Chopin barcarolle to the cannon-like thunderings of the A-flat polonaise.

From Franz Liszt by James Huneker

For example, how divinely you do that fioritura... that...

From Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series by Julius West

Their songs were low and musical, not unlike the song of the canary, though there were no cadenzas or fioritura passages.

From The Dawn of Reason or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals by James Weir

The American baritone, his voice frayed and worn, struggles with the vocal demands of the role, most obviously in the comically fudged triplets in the fioriture of his aria, “Vedrò mentr’io sospiro.”

From Washington Post Aug. 31, 2016

Daughter lacks the stature of Donizetti's comic masterpieces Don Pasquale and L'Elisir d'Amore, but it does provide Sills with countless opportunities for lambent fioriture, whistling-high E-flats, and howling farce.

From Time Magazine Archive

Critics respected the 19th century grandeur that characterized all his work and cheered especially the fioriture he summoned in such choral classics as Handel's Messiah.

From Time Magazine Archive

Before the ultimate one, though, there are limitless opportunities for the prima donna to cut up and rattle off fioriture.

From Time Magazine Archive

This, however, may not be entirely laid at the door of the exacting singer, for we find these same fioriture throughout his harpsichord music.

From Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University by W. J. (Winton James) Baltzell

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