RECITAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does recital mean? 

• RECITAL (noun)
  The noun RECITAL has 5 senses:

1. the act of giving an account describing incidents or a course of events

2. performance of music or dance especially by soloists

3. a public instance of reciting or repeating (from memory) something prepared in advance

4. a detailed statement giving facts and figures

5. a detailed account or description of something

  Familiarity information: RECITAL used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RECITAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of giving an account describing incidents or a course of events

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

narration; recital; yarn

Context example:

his narration was hesitant

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

account; report (the act of informing by verbal report)

Meronyms (parts of "recital"):

body (the central message of a communication)

introduction (the first section of a communication)

close; closing; conclusion; end; ending (the last section of a communication)

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

recounting; relation; telling (an act of narration)

Derivation:

recite (narrate or give a detailed account of)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Performance of music or dance especially by soloists

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

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

performance; public presentation (a dramatic or musical entertainment)

Derivation:

recitalist (a musician who gives recitals)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A public instance of reciting or repeating (from memory) something prepared in advance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

reading; recital; recitation

Context example:

the program included songs and recitations of well-loved poems

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

oral presentation; public speaking; speaking; speechmaking (delivering an address to a public audience)

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

declamation (recitation of a speech from memory with studied gestures and intonation as an exercise in elocution or rhetoric)

Derivation:

recitalist (a musician who gives recitals)

recite (render verbally)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A detailed statement giving facts and figures

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Context example:

his wife gave a recital of his infidelities

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

statement (a message that is stated or declared; a communication (oral or written) setting forth particulars or facts etc)

Sense 5

Meaning:

A detailed account or description of something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Context example:

he was forced to listen to a recital of his many shortcomings

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

account; chronicle; history; story (a record or narrative description of past events)

Derivation:

recite (narrate or give a detailed account of)

 Context examples 

Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

You may easily imagine that I was much gratified by the offered communication, yet I could not endure that he should renew his grief by a recital of his misfortunes.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

There is no need of going into an extended recital of our suffering in the small boat during the many days we were driven and drifted, here and there, willy-nilly, across the ocean.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The invalid sank back upon his cushions, tired out by this long recital, while his nurse poured him out a glass of some stimulating medicine.

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

The bridegroom, who during this recital had grown deadly pale, up and tried to escape, but the guests seized him and held him fast.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

But it seemed to him there was something in the recital that jarred upon his sense of beauty and life.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Charles and Hal begged her to get off and walk, pleaded with her, entreated, the while she wept and importuned Heaven with a recital of their brutality.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Mrs Smith had been carried away from her first direction, and Anne had forgotten, in the interest of her own family concerns, how much had been originally implied against him; but her attention was now called to the explanation of those first hints, and she listened to a recital which, if it did not perfectly justify the unqualified bitterness of Mrs Smith, proved him to have been very unfeeling in his conduct towards her; very deficient both in justice and compassion.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The young ladies of Highbury might have walked again in safety before their panic began, and the whole history dwindled soon into a matter of little importance but to Emma and her nephews:—in her imagination it maintained its ground, and Henry and John were still asking every day for the story of Harriet and the gipsies, and still tenaciously setting her right if she varied in the slightest particular from the original recital.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

You must know best what will be its effect; but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family afflictions, with a recital which may seem to have been intended to raise myself at the expense of others.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)