Word.ws English Dictionary

rubato

US/rəˈbɑ.toʊ/

rubato noun: a tempo in which strict timing is relaxed, the music being played near, but not on, the beat.

Noun

rubato (countable and uncountable, plural rubatos or rubati)

  1. A tempo in which strict timing is relaxed, the music being played near, but not on, the beat.
    • The etudes with metronome markings should be played in tempo, all others should be considered rubato.2007, Michele Weir, Jazz Piano Handbook, Alfred Music Publishing, →ISBN, page 110
    Synonyms:
    tempo rubato

Synonyms of rubato

Forms of rubato

pluralrubatos
pluralrubati

Origin of rubato

Borrowed from Italian rubato (“robbed, stolen”), since the time is "borrowed".

Words formed from rubato

Phrases with rubato

Questions about rubato

What does rubato mean?
Rubato means a tempo in which strict timing is relaxed, the music being played near, but not on, the beat.
What part of speech is rubato?
Rubato is a noun.
How do you pronounce rubato?
Rubato is pronounced /rəˈbɑ.toʊ/ (US).
What is the plural of rubato?
The plural of rubato is rubatos.

Words near rubato in the dictionary

  1. rubashkas
  2. rubashki
  3. rubasse
  4. rubasses
  5. rubati
  6. rubato
  7. rubatos
  8. rubatosis
  9. rubbable
  10. rubbaboo
  11. rubbage

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rubato (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:

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