Word.ws English Dictionary

castrato

Syllables: cas·tra·to/kæsˈtɹɑː.təʊ/

castrato noun: a male who has been castrated, especially a male whose testicles have been removed before puberty in order to retain his boyish voice.

Noun

castrato (plural castratos or castrati)

  1. A male who has been castrated, especially a male whose testicles have been removed before puberty in order to retain his boyish voice.
    • A castrato stepped forward, a slender / young man with earnest grey eyes.2001, Bernardine Evaristo, The Emperor's Babe, Penguin Essentials (2020), page 170
  2. A male soprano or alto voice produced by castration of the treble singer before puberty, intended to conserve his voice; the singer.
    • As contexts shift, so does generational taste. Just ask the castrati – the high-voiced boy singers displaced when Enlightenment liberalism restored female performers to the stage.2025 November 20, Van Badham, “Xania Monet’s music is the stuff of nightmares. Thankfully her AI ‘clankers’ will be limited to this cultural moment”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Adjective

castrato (not comparable)

  1. (literally) Castrated; especially castrated prepubescently.
  2. Having, using or containing the voice of a castrato (noun).
  3. Originally composed for a castrato.
    • Nowadays, either women or countertenors take the castrato roles.

Forms of castrato

pluralcastratos
pluralcastrati

Origin of castrato

From Italian castrato, from Latin castrō (“to castrate”), likely from caedō (“to cut”).

Questions about castrato

What does castrato mean?
Castrato means a male who has been castrated, especially a male whose testicles have been removed before puberty in order to retain his boyish voice.
What part of speech is castrato?
Castrato can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce castrato?
Castrato is pronounced /kæsˈtɹɑː.təʊ/.
What is the plural of castrato?
The plural of castrato is castratos.

Words near castrato in the dictionary

  1. castrations
  2. castratism
  3. castrative
  4. castratively
  5. castrativeness
  6. castrato
  7. castrator
  8. castrators
  9. castratory
  10. castratos
  11. castratrices

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: castrato (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-castrato.wav.

Cite this entry: “castrato.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/castrato. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.