maestro
Americannoun
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an eminent composer, teacher, or conductor of music.
Toscanini and other great maestros.
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(initial capital letter) a title of respect used in addressing or referring to such a person.
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a master of any art.
the maestros of poetry.
noun
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a distinguished music teacher, conductor, or musician
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any man regarded as the master of an art: often used as a term of address
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of maestro
1790–1800; < Italian: master
Explanation
A maestro is an artistic master: someone who is skilled enough to be considered an artistic genius. Taking one music class or art class can teach you a lot, but it won't make you a maestro. Maestro (which comes from Italian) is reserved for people with an enormous amount of skill and talent. This word can apply to any type of artist — and sometimes, to people with impressive skills in other areas — but it's most commonly applied to musicians. Master composers, pianists, cellists, guitarists, and conductors are often called maestros.
Vocabulary lists containing maestro
The Watsons Go to Birmingham
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Stargirl
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The Phantom Tollbooth
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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.
See Examples For:
That mindset has made him a horror maestro for over three decades.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
But there’s one skill that seems to leave this 5-foot-7 maestro looking up at everyone else.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
The emergence of centre-back William Saliba and creative maestro Michael Olise are among the refresh for Didier Deschamps' side since then.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
I will miss watching the greatest maestro and savant in the history of basketball, LeBron James.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 4, 2026
“I am Chroma the Great,” he continued, gesturing broadly with his hands, “conductor of color, maestro of pigment, and director of the entire spectrum.”
From "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster
Just as much, those maestri would defer to Mr. Drucker’s interpretations of clarinet solos.
From New York Times ● Dec. 20, 2022
As an example let us take the case of the radio maestri.
From Time Magazine Archive
And this piece of ecclesiastical furniture therefore presented a great field for the taste and ingenuity of the old maestri in wood-carving to exhibit their skill both in design and in execution.
From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 17, No. 102, June, 1876 by Various
The art of Priscilla seems to me to satisfy this test much better than that of many of our modern maestri.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, July 7th, 1920 by Various
It was established in one of the halls of the Lateran, and even the Carlovingian kings obtained from it skilful maestri and organists.
From Pagan and Christian Rome by Lanciani, Rodolfo Amedeo
Donning video headsets and armed with nothing more than a joystick and the Olympics’ fastest fingers, these maestros have the exact same objective as the athlete they’re filming: to be the best in the world.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026
This is not carefully considered maestros thinking out their strategies, six moves ahead of time.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2025
It was in those friendships, with a language understood only by them and their maestros, that had me fall in love with acting as a dream profession.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2025
Speaking of midfield maestros, the mercurial Zidane has been out of management since leaving Barcelona's Clasico rivals Real Madrid in 2021.
From BBC ● Oct. 28, 2024
In the case of the classical musicians’ auditions, the maestros were incapable of making a fair judgment about how well someone was playing if they could see them.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
