viola

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“
If the viola is the middle child, the piano is the spoiled younger child.

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Definitions (19)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A stringed instrument of the violin family, slightly larger than a violin, tuned a fifth lower, and having a deeper, more sonorous tone.
  2. noun An organ stop usually of eight-foot or four-foot pitch yielding stringlike tones.
  3. noun A plant of the genus Viola, which includes the violets and pansies, especially a variety having flowers resembling violets in size and shape and pansies in coloration.

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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (50)

  • An Elegy, four voices, with the accompaniment of two violins, viola, and violoncello , 24 ducats. —  Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826
  • Alice is his diva viola, his prize, and Hua Chiang and Telogo have been circling her like ravens, picking apart her performance, corvid eyes on her, watching and hungry for fault, but now they call her ready. —  Fantasy and Science Fiction - [Vol 111] - Issue 04-05 - October-November 2006
  • A quartet which has gained a great reputation in Europe during recent years is the Bohemian Quartet, consisting of Carl Hoffmann, first violin, Joseph Suk, second violin, Oscar Nedbal, viola, and Hanus Wihom, violoncello. —  Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday
  • F. Liszt Weymar, January 8th, 1858 P.S.—I shall be much obliged if you will send me two supplementary parts of the quartet (first and second violin, viola, and bass) of each of Glinka's works. —  Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: Years of Travel as a Virtuoso,"
  • One minute I had been standing in my music bower, completely absorbed in my interactions with the shadows who were playing the flute and harp parts in Claude Debussy's sonata for flute, viola, and harp. —  Asimov'sSF,Feb2004
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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Italian, from Old Provençal, viola, probably of imitative origin.
  2. Middle English, from Latin.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Italian viola, a viol: see viol.
 

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/viˈoʊlə/
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