Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To frequent or hold ridottos.
  • noun A house or hall of public entertainment.
  • noun A company of persons met together for amusement; a social assembly.
  • noun A public entertainment devoted to music and dancing; a dancing-party, often in masquerade.
  • noun In music, an arrangement or reduction of a piece from the full score.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A favorite Italian public entertainment, consisting of music and dancing, -- held generally on fast eves.
  • noun (Music) An arrangement or abridgment of a piece from the full score.
  • intransitive verb rare To hold ridottos.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A public ball, typically a masquerade, popular in the 18th century.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Italian ridotto ("foyer").

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Examples

Comments

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  • "'She has been driving about the countryside, dining with people as far as twenty miles away... frequently going to balls and ridottos in Portsmouth...'"

    --P. O'Brian, The Commodore, 43

    March 16, 2008

  • Sometimes used as a slang word for idiot in Italian.

    April 10, 2008

  • Really? In which part of Italy?

    April 10, 2008

  • Central, Umbria. I think it's related to the notion of disability. For instance, the public buses have a sign in them next the big space that reads: Questo posto e' riservato alle persone a ridotta capacita' motoraria.

    Hence un ridotto is a person 'of reduced capacity', in this pejorative sense mental capacity. I also heard a girl from Ischia use it in this sense - "Ma dai, non fare il ridotto per carita'" - to a person who was doing something stupid.

    April 10, 2008