magnum opus
noun
Simple meaning
A great or important work of literature, music or art.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
magnuhmohpuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmæɡnəˈmoʊpəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A great or important work of literature, music or art, a masterpiece.
The best, most popular, or most renowned achievement of an author or artist, representing their major life effort.
alchemy
The process of working with the prima materia to create the philosopher's stone.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A great or important work of literature, music or art, a masterpiece.
Used this way, magnum opus is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Music/performance
- Arts writing
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.