Word of the Day:
leitmotif
What It Means
A melodic theme associated with a particular character, place, thing or idea in an opera.
Leitmotif in Context
“In Wagner's operas, especially his cycle of four operas known collectively as the Ring cycle, the leitmotif did not simply label or point to one particular character or object but rather conjured up a realm of ideas.”
Did You Know?
From German Leitmotiv (“leading motif”), from leiten (“to lead”) + Motiv (“motif”), originally used to describe Wagnerian opera. The spelling was influenced by motif.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: leitmotif (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “leitmotif.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/leitmotif. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
