Word.ws English Dictionary

grand opera

grand opera noun: a genre of 19th-century opera characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events.

Noun

grand opera (plural grand operas)

  1. A genre of 19th-century opera characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events.
    • Clearly, Hitler saw his historical function as a Wagnerian grand opera. Vast cosmic changes required an accompaniment of slaughter on a colossal scale.1949 September 4, H. R. Trevor-Roper, “Hitler Reappraised, Ten Years After”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 16 Jul 2025

Forms of grand opera

pluralgrand operas

Origin of grand opera

Borrowed from French grand opéra.

Questions about grand opera

What does grand opera mean?
Grand opera means a genre of 19th-century opera characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events.
What part of speech is grand opera?
Grand opera is a noun.
What is the plural of grand opera?
The plural of grand opera is grand operas.

Words near grand opera in the dictionary

  1. Grand National
  2. grand old man
  3. grand old men
  4. grand opening
  5. grand openings
  6. grand opera
  7. Grand Orient
  8. Grand Orient Freemasonry
  9. Grand Orients
  10. grand passion
  11. grand passions

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grand opera (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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