orchestration
Americannoun
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the composition or arrangement of music for performance by a band or orchestra, or the music so composed or arranged.
Holst's iconic musical portrayal of the planets and their astrological significance delights audiences with its rich orchestration and memorable melodies.
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the instruments used in such a composition or arrangement; instrumentation.
Handel's original orchestration was for strings and continuo with occasional trumpets and drums.
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the plans or planning necessary to arrange something or cause something to happen.
The book chronicles the Empress Dowager’s selection as a concubine and her orchestration of the coup that made her the de facto ruler of China.
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Computers. an automated series of processes to configure, coordinate, or manage computer systems, data, or software.
A successful cloud strategy requires orchestration of on-demand provisioning processes and coordination of cloud resources.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of orchestration
First recorded in 1830–40; orchestrat(e) ( def. ) + -ion ( def. )
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.
Wilson, who first staged “Messiah” at the Salzburg Festival in 2020 using Mozart’s seldom-heard orchestration, treats this as a spiritual fantasy.
From Los Angeles Times • May 11, 2026
We are drawn by the painting’s rich orchestration of warm and cool browns—from sludgy tan to super-charged ocher verging on sienna—and its seductive textures.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 17, 2026
“The question is no longer whether it can dominate the training boom; it is whether it can stay central as AI spending broadens into inference, orchestration, and more customized compute.”
From Barron's • Apr. 1, 2026
“While GPUs handle the heavy mathematical lifting for AI, modern high-core-count CPUs are becoming indispensable for orchestration, data-management, and real-time inference tasks that GPUs cannot perform efficiently,” Lee wrote.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 20, 2026
What is different, and new, about this movement is not its structure, orchestration or technical bravado, but its attitude.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
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.
