Sonata

How to spell sonata

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce sonata

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sonata mean?

1. nounA musical composition for one or two instruments, typically in several contrasting movements.

Sonata in a sentence

• The pianist closed the recital with a famous Beethoven sonata.

• Each movement of the sonata explored a different tempo and mood.

Where does sonata come from?

Language of origin: Italian

This is an Italian word, the feminine past participle of sonare, meaning 'to sound' or 'to play an instrument', which itself comes from the Latin verb sonare with the same meaning. A sonata was literally 'a piece that is sounded', that is, played on instruments, and it was coined as a deliberate contrast with cantata, 'a piece that is sung', from cantare 'to sing'. English borrowed the word directly from Italian in the early 1700s as instrumental music flourished across Europe, and it kept the Italian spelling and the single internal t. The same sonare root echoes through familiar English words such as 'sound', 'resonate', and 'sonorous', so remembering that a sonata is something 'sounded' helps fix the single n and single t in place.

How the word is built

• son- (from Latin sonare: to sound)
• -ata (Italian feminine past-participle ending: a thing that has been sounded or played)