Word.ws English Dictionary

cantilena

/kæntɪˈleɪnə/

cantilena noun: a vocal melody or instrumental passage in a smooth, lyrical style.

Noun

cantilena (plural cantilenas)

  1. A vocal melody or instrumental passage in a smooth, lyrical style.
    • 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.1964, Anthony Burgess, The Eve of St Venus
    • 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...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

Forms of cantilena

pluralcantilenas

Origin of cantilena

Borrowed from Italian or Latin cantilēna.

Questions about cantilena

What does cantilena mean?
Cantilena means a vocal melody or instrumental passage in a smooth, lyrical style.
What part of speech is cantilena?
Cantilena is a noun.
How do you pronounce cantilena?
Cantilena is pronounced /kæntɪˈleɪnə/.
What is the plural of cantilena?
The plural of cantilena is cantilenas.

Words near cantilena in the dictionary

  1. Cantigny
  2. cantil
  3. Cantilan
  4. cantile
  5. cantiled
  6. cantilena
  7. cantilenas
  8. cantilever
  9. cantilever bra
  10. cantilever bras
  11. cantilever chair

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cantilena (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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