OPERA

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Opera mean? 

• OPERA (noun)
  The noun OPERA has 3 senses:

1. a drama set to music; consists of singing with orchestral accompaniment and an orchestral overture and interludes

2. a commercial browser

3. a building where musical dramas are performed

  Familiarity information: OPERA used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OPERA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A drama set to music; consists of singing with orchestral accompaniment and an orchestral overture and interludes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("opera" is a kind of...):

classical; classical music; serious music (traditional genre of music conforming to an established form and appealing to critical interest and developed musical taste)

Meronyms (parts of "opera"):

supertitle; surtitle (translation of the words of a foreign opera (or choral work) projected on a screen above the stage)

act (a subdivision of a play or opera or ballet)

aria (an elaborate song for solo voice)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "opera"):

rock opera (an opera with rock music)

bouffe; comic opera; opera bouffe; opera comique (opera with a happy ending and in which some of the text is spoken)

grand opera (opera in which all the text is sung)

musical drama (opera in which the musical and dramatic elements are equally important; the music is appropriate to the action)

Derivation:

operatic (of or relating to or characteristic of opera)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A commercial browser

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Instance hypernyms:

browser; web browser (a program used to view HTML documents)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A building where musical dramas are performed

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

opera; opera house

Hypernyms ("opera" is a kind of...):

house; theater; theatre (a building where theatrical performances or motion-picture shows can be presented)

Derivation:

operatic (of or relating to or characteristic of opera)

 Context examples 

“I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to go to the opera tonight,” said Mr. Maldon, turning to her.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"How did you like it?" she asked him one night, on the way home from the opera.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Laurie sold his busts, made allumettes of his opera, and went back to Paris, hoping somebody would arrive before long.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

An opera hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening dress shirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Cramer, of the Opera, said only the other day that he had rather hand his bâton to me than to any amateur in England.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young—like the fine ladies at the opera.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

She went to it; but the music on which her eye first rested was an opera, procured for her by Willoughby, containing some of their favourite duets, and bearing on its outward leaf her own name in his hand-writing.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

To see him walking like a comic opera Sultan, with this badge of authority in his hand, his black beard bristling in front of him, his toes pointing at each step, and a train of wide-eyed Indian girls behind him, clad in their slender drapery of bark cloth, is one of the most grotesque of all the pictures which I will carry back with me.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Let me see!” said Holmes. Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858. Contralto—hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw—yes! Retired from operatic stage—ha! Living in London—quite so!

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)