Word.ws English Dictionary

duet

/djuˈɛt/

duet noun: a musical composition in two parts, each performed by a single voice (singer, instrument or univoce ensemble).

Noun

duet (plural duets)

  1. A musical composition in two parts, each performed by a single voice (singer, instrument or univoce ensemble).
    Synonyms:
    duo
  2. A song composed for and/or performed by a duo.
  3. A pair or couple, especially one that is harmonious or elegant.
    • The fare is Caribbean with an Asian touch — millefeuille of sun-dried tomato, Paris mushrooms and chargrilled local asparagus followed by a duet of chicken and shrimp...2005, James Henderson, Caribbean and the Bahamas
    Synonyms:
    couple

Verb

duet (third-person singular simple present duets, present participle duetting or dueting, simple past and past participle duetted or dueted)

  1. (intransitive) To perform a duet.
    • When you can spare time from duetting, coquetting, and claretting with your Hibernians of both sexes, let me have a line from you.1822, Lord Byron, Letter to Mr. Moore, Pisa, July 12, 1822, in The Letters of George Gordon Byron, edited by Mathilde Blind, London: Walter Scott, 1887, p. 277...
    • He was about as accordantly coupled with Dr. Middleton in discourse as a drum duetting with a bass-viol […]1879, George Meredith, chapter 20, in The Egoist
  2. (intransitive) To communicate (warnings, mating calls, etc.) through song.
    • Duetting species are typically monogamous.1975, Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Belknap Press, p. 223
    • In several dozen species of birds there has been found a phenomenon known as duetting, or antiphonal singing: the first part of a song is executed by one partner of a pair, then the other partner very promptly chimes in to sing the second part.1986, Thomas A. Sebeok, chapter 7, in I Think I Am a Verb: More Contributions to the Doctrine of Signs, New York: Springer Science+Business, published 2013, page 87
  3. (transitive) To perform (sing, play, etc.) as a duet.
    • Peena and Queena are duetting a giggle-for-giggle […]1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC
    • After the Lord's Prayer the Missionaries duetted a hymn while the children stared at me.1941, Emily Carr, chapter 1, in Klee Wyck
  4. (transitive) (of two people) To say at the same time, to chorus.
    • “My dear papa!” duetted the girls; but there was something in the husband and father's face, that told the three ladies it would be worse than useless to raise that question at present.1864, Charles Whitehead, “The Stock-Broker”, in Heads of the People: or, Portraits of the English, volume I, London: Henry G. Bohn, page 23
    • “A bear!” exclaimed the Major, jumping up and coming forward.
      “A bear!” dueted the Doctor and Right Rev., pressing hastily to the front.1884, Anonymous, A Speculation, Denver: D. M. Richards, Chapter 12, p. 50, https://books.google.ca/books?id=RsFQAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Proper noun capitalized: Duet

Duet (plural Duets)

  1. A surname.

duet meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

duet in Tamil

இருவர் பாடிசை, உறழ் பாடல்

duet in Urdu

ڈوئٹ

duet in Bengali

ডুয়েট

duet in Malayalam

ഡ്യുയറ്റ്, ഡ്യുവറ്റ്
More languagesFewer languages
duet in Kannada
ಯುಗಳ ಗೀತೆ, ಜೋಡಿಹಾಡು, ದ್ವಂದ್ವ ಗೀತೆ, ದ್ವಂದ್ವ ಗಾಯನ
duet in Nepali
डुएट

Examples of duet in a sentence

  • Her song featured a virtual duet between her and Frank Sinatra, through sampling several of his songs.
  • As well as duetting with him on Campbell's new album, Barnes also sang at his recent wedding.
  • One problem is that 'ue' is often pronounced bisyllabically, as in cruet, duet, fluent, suet.

All 17 example sentences with duet

Synonyms of duet

Forms of duet

Noun
pluralduets
Verb
third-person singular presentduets
present participleduetting
present participledueting
past participleduetted
pastduetted
past participledueted
pastdueted
Proper noun
pluralDuets

Plural of duet: duets

Origin of duet

PIE word *dwóh₁ From Italian duetto (“short musical composition for two voices”), diminutive of due (“two”).

Words formed from duet

Words that rhyme with duet

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about duet

What does duet mean?
Duet means a musical composition in two parts, each performed by a single voice (singer, instrument or univoce ensemble).
What is duet in Tamil?
Duet in Tamil is இருவர் பாடிசை, உறழ் பாடல். See Duet meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is duet?
Duet can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce duet?
Duet is pronounced /djuˈɛt/.
What is the plural of duet?
The plural of duet is duets.

Words near duet in the dictionary

  1. Dueser
  2. Duesers
  3. duesey
  4. duesies
  5. duesy
  6. duet
  7. dueted
  8. duetie
  9. dueties
  10. dueting
  11. duetist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: duet (page history and authors); Duet (page history and authors); duet (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); duet (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duet (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duet (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); duet (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); duet (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-duet.wav.

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