coloratura

/kɒləɹəˈtjʊɹə/

coloratura noun: florid or fancy passages in vocal music.

Noun

coloratura (countable and uncountable, plural coloraturas)

(uncountable) Florid or fancy passages in vocal music.
- The singing is generally excellent, with Simon Keenlyside standing out for his richly vocalized (and amusingly dour) Papageno and Diana Damrau for her spot-on coloratura and genuine venom as the Queen of the Night.2004, The Video Librarian, volume 19, page 71
(countable) A singer of such passages, especially a soprano.
- The middle one, of course, was the coloratura Julia Kristeva, known as the most voluptuous Salome in the business.1980, Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers

coloratura (comparative more coloratura, superlative most coloratura)

Pertaining to coloratura.
- She has a lighter and more coloratura voice.
- I drew a deep breath, this time fortunately unmixed with gin and tonic. I was profoundly stirred. “You mean,” I said, my voice quavering like that of a coloratura soprano, “that I went through that soul-shattering experience all for nothing?”1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC

Borrowed from Italian coloratura, from Late Latin colōrātūra, from colōrāre (“to colour”).

18 more rhymesFewer rhymes

What does coloratura mean?: Coloratura means florid or fancy passages in vocal music.
What part of speech is coloratura?: Coloratura can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce coloratura?: Coloratura is pronounced /kɒləɹəˈtjʊɹə/.
What is the plural of coloratura?: The plural of coloratura is coloraturas.

Adapted from Wiktionary: coloratura (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: 2026-09-02

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