violin

/ˌvaɪ.əˈlɪn/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

South Asia/ˈʋaɪᵊ.lɪn/

violin noun: a small unfretted stringed instrument with four strings tuned (lowest to highest) G-D-A-E, usually held against the chin and played with a bow.

Image: Just plain Bill, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

violin (plural violins)

A small unfretted stringed instrument with four strings tuned (lowest to highest) G-D-A-E, usually held against the chin and played with a bow.
- When I play it like this, it's a fiddle; when I play it like this, it's a violin.
- She was looking more like Sherlock Holmes than ever. Slap a dressing-gown on her and give her a violin, and she could have walked straight into Baker Street and no questions asked.1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XX, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC
(proscribed, sometimes, inexact) Any instrument of the violin family, always inclusive of violins, violas and cellos, and sometimes further including the double bass.
- The string quartet, one of the most popular groupings in chamber music, is composed entirely of violins: two violins proper, one viola, and one cello.
(metonymically) A violinist in an orchestra or group.
- The violins are seated with sufficient elbow room.
- She is first violin in the London Symphony Orchestra.

Verb

violin (third-person singular simple present violins, present participle violining, simple past and past participle violined)

(ambitransitive) To play on, or as if on, a violin.

violin meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

violin in Hindi

string instrument: वायलिन vāylin, बेला belā, सारंगी sāraṅgī

violin in Tamil

string instrument: வயலின் vayaliṉ

violin in Marathi

string instrument: वायोलिन vāyolin

violin in Urdu

string instrument: سارَن٘گی sāraṅgī, بیلا belā, وایْلِن vāylin

More languagesFewer languages

violin in Bengali: বেহালা behala
violin in Telugu: వాయులీనము vāyulīnamu, ఫిడేలు phiḍēlu
violin in Malayalam: വയലിൻ
violin in Kannada: ಪಿಟೀಲು piṭīlu
violin in Punjabi: ਵਾਇਲਿਨ vāilin
violin in Assamese: বেহেলা behela
violin in Tagalog: biyolin, magbiyolin
violin in Arabic: كَمَان kamān
violin in Malay: biola
violin in Indonesian: biola
violin in Thai: ไวโอลิน wai-oo-lin
violin in Vietnamese: vĩ cầm
violin in Myanmar: တယော ta.yau:
Dzongkha: པི་ཝང pi wang

Examples of violin in a sentence

My violin teacher used to play first chair with the Boston Pops.
The orchestra's third violin several times was sharp about an eighth of a tone.
Some people covered their ears when he started to scrape his violin.

All 40 example sentences with violin

Synonyms of violin

fiddle
crowd

Forms of violin

Noun
plural	violins
Verb
third-person singular present	violins
present participle	violining
past participle	violined
past	violined

Plural of violin: violins

Origin of violin

Derived from Italian violino (“little viola”), from viola + -ino.

Phrases with violin

Words that rhyme with violin

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about violin

What does violin mean?: Violin means a small unfretted stringed instrument with four strings tuned (lowest to highest) G-D-A-E, usually held against the chin and played with a bow.
What is violin in Hindi?: Violin in Hindi is वायलिन (vāylin), बेला (belā), सारंगी (sāraṅgī). See Violin meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is violin?: Violin can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce violin?: Violin is pronounced /ˌvaɪ.əˈlɪn/.
What is the plural of violin?: The plural of violin is violins.

Words near violin in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: violin (page history and authors); violin (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-violin.ogg.

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