Primary
''cadenza'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260331180822-00-⌔
cadenza - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
cadenza (plural cadenzas or cadenze)
- (music) A part of a piece of music, such as a concerto, that is very decorative and is played by a single musician.
- ✤ Yes, laugh, as I want to laugh for instance in the concert hall when the orchestra trundles to a stop and the virtuoso at his piano, hunched like a demented vet before the bared teeth of this enormous black beast of sound, lifts up deliquescent hands and prepares to plunge into the cadenza.1
Verb
cadenza (third-person singular simple present cadenzas, present participle cadenzaing, simple past and past participle cadenzaed)
- (South Africa, slang) To become agitated or excited.2
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian cadenza, from Latin cadentia. Doublet of cadence and chance.
Pronunciation
- IPA: /kəˈdɛnzə/, [kʰəˈdɛnzə]
- Audio (US): 🔊
- (pin–pen merger)
- (Southern US, Appalachia, African-American Vernacular) IPA: /kəˈdɪnzə/, [kʰəˈdɪ̟nzə]
- Hyphenation: ca‧den‧za
Printed 2026-06-28.
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Link to original Footnotes
1993, John Banville, Ghosts: ↩
Secondary
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