Solo

How to spell solo

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce solo

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does solo mean?

1. nounA piece of music, a performance, or an act carried out by a single person.
2. adjectiveDone or performed alone, without companions or support.

Solo in a sentence

• noun

  The guitarist played a long solo before the chorus returned.

• adjective

  She planned a solo trip across the mountains next summer.

• noun

  Her violin solo silenced the entire concert hall.

• adjective

  After years in the band, he launched a solo career.

Where does solo come from?

Language of origin: Italian

Solo comes directly from the Italian word solo, meaning 'alone' or 'single', which itself descends from the Latin solus, with the same sense of being by oneself or set apart. English borrowed the term in the seventeenth century as a musical word, describing a passage written for a single voice or instrument while everything else falls silent. From music the sense broadened to any feat performed without companions or support, such as a pilot flying without an instructor or a climber tackling a route unroped. The same Latin solus root sits quietly inside everyday words like 'sole', 'solitary' and 'desolate', all carrying that idea of one and only. Because the spelling keeps the tidy Italian shape, it stays simple: two short syllables, no doubled letters and no silent traps.

How the word is built

• solo (from Italian solo: alone, single)