Viola

How to spell viola

5 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce viola

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does viola mean?

1. nounA bowed string instrument slightly larger and lower in pitch than a violin.
2. nounA small garden plant of the genus that includes violets and pansies, often with purple, yellow, or white flowers.

Viola in a sentence

• She switched from the violin to the viola because she preferred its deeper, warmer tone.

• She planted a tray of viola along the border for some early spring colour.

• The orchestra was short one viola for the evening concert.

• The viola thrives in cool weather and partial shade.

Where does viola come from?

Language of origin: Italian

Viola is a word with two distinct stories that happen to share a spelling. As the name of the stringed instrument, it comes straight from Italian viola, a term for a bowed string instrument that goes back to Old Occitan viola or viula and ultimately to the Medieval Latin vitula, a word for a stringed instrument that also gave us 'violin', 'viol', and 'fiddle'. The Italian language tidily marked size and pitch with endings, so a viola sat between the smaller violino (little viola) and the larger violoncello, and English simply adopted the Italian form during the 1700s. As the name of the garden flower, viola is the Latin word for the violet, a small fragrant plant, and that sense was taken up directly as the botanical genus name. The shared spelling is the whole trap: the instrument is said 'vee-OH-luh' while the flower is said 'VY-uh-luh', yet both are written exactly the same way.

How the word is built

• viol- (stringed instrument root, from Italian viola)
• -a (Italian noun ending)