orchestra
noun
Simple meaning
The area in a theatre or concert hall where the musicians sit, immediately in front of and below the stage, sometimes used by other performers.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
awrkuhstruhSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɔɹkəstɹə
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
The area in a theatre or concert hall where the musicians sit, immediately in front of and below the stage, sometimes (also) used by other performers.
music
A large group of musicians who play together on various instruments, usually including some from strings, woodwind, brass and/or percussion; the instruments played by such a group.
Ancient Greecetheater
A semicircular space in front of the stage used by the chorus in Ancient Greek and Hellenistic theatres.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A large group of musicians who play together on various instruments, usually including some from strings, woodwind, brass and/or percussion; the instruments played by such a group.
Used this way, orchestra 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
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Music/performance
- Arts writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use orchestra
- “The school orchestra played beautiful music at the concert.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Lowered area in front of a stage where an orchestra accompanies the performers.
A large orchestra.
A group of musicians playing popular music for dancing.
An orchestra playing only stringed instruments.
Small orchestra.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Relating to or composed for an orchestra.
Arranged for performance by an orchestra.
An arrangement of a piece of music for performance by an orchestra or band.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- ensemblenoun
- quintetnoun
- conductornoun
- concertonoun
- orchestraladjective
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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.