Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adv. Music In a restless, agitated style. Used chiefly as a direction.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Agitated; restless: a word used in music, generally in combination with allegro or presto, to describe the character of a movement as broken, hurried, or restless in style.
Wiktionary
- n. music A tempo mark directing that a passage is to be played in a restless agitated style.
- n. music A passage having this mark.
- adv. music Played in a restless agitated style.
- adj. music Describing a passage having this mark.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Mus.) Sung or played in a restless, hurried, and spasmodic manner.
Etymologies
- Borrowing from Italian agitato. (Wiktionary)
- Italian, past participle of agitare, from Latin agitāre, to agitate; see agitate. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Stunned sports fans heard about great choral rushes, about slap shots con brio, about passing agitato and penalty-killing molto expressivo.”
“Then came a swift _agitato finale_ -- a breathless, hurrying, trembling movement, descriptive of flight, and uncertainty, and vague impulsive terror, which carried us away on its rustling wings, and left us all emotion and wonder.”
“Then came a swift agitato finale -- a breathless, hurrying, trembling movement, descriptive of flight, and uncertainty, and vague impulsive terror, which carried us away on its rustling wings, and left us all in emotion and wonder.”
“The _agitato finale_ means the close of the passage with a hurrying movement.”
“(The superlative degree of _allegro_.) _Allegro agitato_ -- a moderately rapid tempo, and in agitated style.”
“There is a military moment, a lyric of more seriousness, and a finish agitato.”
“There is, I believe, no composition in the whole world that shows with the same distinctness the soul torn by tragic conflict; especially in the third part of the Sonata, the _Presto-agitato_.”
“With the scene of the denial, for which we are thus prepared, the dramatic movement becomes exceedingly rapid, and the rendering of the events in the high-priest's hall -- Peter's bass recitative alternating its craven protestations with the clamorous agitato chorus of the servants -- is stirring in the extreme.”
“Alia prima notizia della di lei malattia egli fu sommamente agitato; giunse poi la notizia della morte, ed io dovessi esercitare il tristo uficio di participarla a Lord Byron.”
“This may be marked 'presto agitato', but I've never heard it played so crazily fast yet still accurate: the trouble was, all the detail of the passage work - which is the real thrill here - got blown away in the wind.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘agitato’.
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Beautiful Music
a cappella, accelerando, accompagnato, adagio, ad libitum, agitato, aleatory, alla breve, allegro, allemande, alto, andante and 548 more...
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perhapsolutely's Words
polyradiculoneuro..., abulia, abubble, abscission, abaft, zareba, abatis, abigail, abiogenesis, ablate, ablaut, abo and 1705 more...
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