quartet
Americannoun
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quartets
plural
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any group of four persons or things.
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an organized group of four singers or players.
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a musical composition for four voices or instruments.
noun
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a group of four singers or instrumentalists or a piece of music composed for such a group See string quartet
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any group of four
a quartet of fast bowlers
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of quartet
1765–75; < Italian quartetto, diminutive of quarto < Latin quartus fourth
Explanation
A quartet is a musical group with four members. If you play the viola, you might form a string quartet with two violinists and a cellist. You can use the noun quartet to describe your four-person singing group, and you can also use it to talk about the piece of music you're performing, if it's written specifically for four voices or instruments. The word quartet comes from the Italian quarto, or "fourth," which in turn has it roots in the Latin quartus, also meaning "fourth."
Vocabulary lists containing quartet
Music - Introductory
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Scrabble: Words that Begin with Q
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Music - Middle 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.
See Examples For:
The result is Australia's fabled foursome now have 607 wickets in Tests in which they have played as a quartet.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
He worked through the music of that first new release, joined by its quartet members: guitarist Max Light, bassist Walter Stinson and drummer Jon Starks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
While the quartet — the first metal band to perform at Sphere — tore through the instrumental deep cut “The Call of Ktulu,” that drippy leviathan swatted at life-sized fighter jets on the screen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
For now, England have a blossoming four-man pace quartet that has drawn comparisons with the famous Ashes winners of 2005.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
The Fellini-esque quartet spoke in an arcane language and made references to people with feudal titles who lived centuries ago.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
String quartets strummed their way through classical covers of pop hits.
From Salon ● Mar. 4, 2026
The evening began with one of two string quartets by Laura Valborg Aulin, a Swede who died in 1928 and is the sole female classical composer featured at this year’s festival.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 14, 2026
De Longe had set up desks in quartets and placed nameplates on each one.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 19, 2025
It’s difficult to imagine even the earliest of Shostakovich’s quartets without some grit in the sound.
From New York Times ● Nov. 28, 2024
In the last two years of his life, now profoundly deaf and mosdy bedridden by severe illness, Beethoven withdrew into a private sound world, composing six string quartets of astonishing, unapproachable intensity.
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.
