Opera

How to spell opera

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce opera

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does opera mean?

1. nounA dramatic work in which the text is sung to orchestral accompaniment, or the art form and theatre devoted to such works.

Opera in a sentence

• They booked front-row seats for the new opera at the city theatre.

• She trained for years before singing her first lead role in an opera.

Where does opera come from?

Language of origin: Italian

The word came into English from Italian in the late 1600s, where opera meant 'a work' or 'a composition', and behind it stands the Latin opera, which literally meant 'work, labour, or effort'. That Latin word was the plural of opus, meaning 'a single work', and it is the same root that gives us 'operate', 'operation', and the musical term 'opus' still used to number a composer's pieces. In Italy the full phrase was opera in musica, 'a work in music', which was shortened simply to opera as the new sung drama became fashionable. English borrowed the shortened term for the staged art form combining singing, orchestra, and drama, and kept the Italian spelling unchanged. Because the word ends in an unstressed -era that sounds like a vague schwa, the main thing to remember is that it is spelled exactly like the Latin original, with no extra letters.

How the word is built

• opera (from Latin opus: work, labour; opera is the plural form, treated as a singular noun in English)