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cantilena. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
cantilena, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
cantilena in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian or Latin cantilēna.
Pronunciation
Noun
cantilena (plural cantilenas)
- (music) A vocal melody or instrumental passage in a smooth, lyrical style.
1964, Anthony Burgess, The Eve of St Venus:He played a lazy tune that sinuated from C sharp down to G natural and back again. Astonishing that he could flute so lazy a cantilena while chasing nymphs.
1982, Gene Wolfe, chapter 27, in The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun; 3), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, pages 203-204:The sounds of insects, of which I am seldom conscious unless I have not heard them in some time, resumed, with a noise that reminded me of the tuning of the strings in the Blue Hall before the first cantilena began, a noise I sometimes used to listen to when I lay on my pallet near the open port of the apprentices' dormitory.
Anagrams
Finnish
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian cantilena.
Pronunciation
Noun
cantilena
- cantilena
Declension
Italian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kan.tiˈlɛ.na/
- Rhymes: -ɛna
- Hyphenation: can‧ti‧lè‧na
Etymology 1
Borrowed from Latin cantilēna.
Noun
cantilena f (plural cantilene)
- lullaby
- Synonym: filastrocca
- singsong
- whining, cant
Derived terms
Etymology 2
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Verb
cantilena
- inflection of cantilenare:
- third-person singular present indicative
- second-person singular imperative
Anagrams
Latin
Etymology
From *cantilō + -ēla, the attested cantilō, cantillō being back-formed.
Pronunciation
Noun
cantilēna f (genitive cantilēnae); first declension
- old song
- oft-repeated saying
- gossip
Declension
First-declension noun.
Descendants
References
- “cantilena”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “cantilena”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- cantilena in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
- cantilena in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- Breyer, Gertrud (1993) Etruskisches Sprachgut im Lateinischen unter Ausschluß des spezifisch onomastischen Bereiches (Orientalia Analecta Lovaniensia; 53), Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters en Departement Oriëntalistiek, →ISBN, page 55
Portuguese
Pronunciation
Noun
cantilena f (plural cantilenas)
- (Portugal) Synonym of parlenda
Spanish
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin cantilēna.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kantiˈlena/
- Rhymes: -ena
- Syllabification: can‧ti‧le‧na
Noun
cantilena f (plural cantilenas)
- cantilena
Further reading