Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A theatrical production that has many of the musical elements of opera but is lighter and more popular in subject and style and contains spoken dialogue. Also called light opera.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A short opera, generally of a light character and so belonging to the class of comic opera or opera bouffe.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Mus.) A short, light, musical drama.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a short amusing opera
Etymologies
- Borrowing from Italian operetta. (Wiktionary)
- Italian, diminutive of opera, opera; see opera1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Franz Lehár's operetta is the perfect titbit for a financial crisis, as it concerns the fiscal anxieties of a small European state whose entire GDP has ended up in a flighty young widow's jewellery drawer.”
“The operetta is the ironic utopia of an enduring reign of capital. —”
“Around the same time that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were swinging their way into America's hearts with a snappy new American approach to movie musical comedy, another musical movie couple, Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, made a huge success bringing to the screen and enlivening a dying European tradition of sentimental musical romance we call operetta.”
“He composed a very amusing so-called operetta using popular tunes at the time.”
“One of the characters in the operetta was a duchess whose adventures afforded the audience much diversion.”
“The show is an operetta, which is traditionally humorous.”
“I'm not sure why the "operetta" appellation has stuck, but to me it seems to be in the same genre as his other works, albeit with some waltzes and a lighter story.”
“He, too, would be quite satisfied not to hear the word "operetta" for a year.”
“I don't want to _hear_ the word 'operetta' again for a year! ”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘operetta’.
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HU Realia
Cultural realia from Hungary.
I have only included realia that already have an English spelling variant and DID NOT include Hungarian words that would be used in English texts unchang...charcoal kiln, embroidered felt ..., farmstead, golden stick, graft, herdsman’s whip, inn, lever well, limekiln, local border traffic, maypole, merino and 356 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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harmony of the spheres
tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, subtonic, leading tone, progression, sonata, concerto, allegro and 247 more...
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the_grene_kni3t's Words
acuarela, sesquipedalian, capital, métier, chap, cove, guv, guv'nor, ratiocination, transatlantique, ineffable, aural and 142 more...
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NeoVolt's Words
schadenfreude, serendipity, idiosyncrasy, loess, caducous, vagary, schematic, steeple, licentious, tangential, verisimilitude, vernacular and 385 more...
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Musical words
nocturne, flat, sharp, waltz, etude, opera, soprano, alto, tenor, bass, cello, flute and 131 more...
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GRE List
anthem, ablution, apocrypha, augur, cardinal, cathedral, chant, chapel, cloister, conformist, cult, devout and 145 more...
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GRE uncommon
patronage, expletive, exhort, exegesis, execrable, excommunicate, evince, escarpment, ersatz, ergo, epoxy, snare and 1202 more...
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A Night at the Opera
Opera terminology.
sitzprobe, claque, maestro, impresario, divo, diva, spinto, bel canto, falsetto, parlando, pants role, trouser role and 50 more...
Tweets
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