symphony orchestra
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of symphony orchestra
First recorded in 1880–85
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.
She approached the headmaster at her conservatory who placed her in a string ensemble before advancing her to the symphony orchestra as a violinist.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 27, 2026
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour put a symphony orchestra on stage alongside the actors in a savage satire which dramatised the plight of Soviet dissidents locked away in mental hospitals.
From BBC • Nov. 29, 2025
It’s a grand work operating on the largest scale, with a symphony orchestra, choirs and odes to saints rendered in many languages.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 25, 2025
An actual symphony orchestra rerecorded “Oz’s” mono score on the very same MGM stage used in 1939, allegedly with some of the same instruments.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 3, 2025
To them its assault on the senses was startlingly fresh, as if someone had uninvented the symphony orchestra and started again from scratch.
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.
