parlando
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of parlando
1875–80; < Italian, present participle of parlare to speak; see parle
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.
“I’m tired of making up while you’ve been making out with someone else’s makeup,” she spits in her signature punk parlando.
From Salon ● Feb. 19, 2026
Her dark-hued, resinous, trembling-vibrato soprano has an inherent morbidity, haunting in both Fedora’s longer lyrical lines and speech-like parlando.
From New York Times ● Jan. 1, 2023
The result, though, on first hearing can sound like an endless flow of parlando singing, more ongoing narration than operatic musing, music confined to underscoring Shakespeare’s unbroachable phrases.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2022
Her singing was variable in the extreme, with some soft, meltingly lovely parlando phrases giving way to strident, insecurely pitched climaxes that quavered on wiry threads of sound.
From Chicago Tribune ● Jan. 24, 2011
Instead of broad, flowing, but intelligible themes, a mongrel breed of recitative and parlando was to take their place.
From Old Fogy His Musical Opinions and Grotesques by James Huneker
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.
