Other forms: altos
An alto is a singing voice between the highest and the middle. The alto line, sing alto, an alto part.
In a four-part choir the order is soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and alto is the second from the top — usually sung by lower female voices or by countertenors. Alto also names instruments in that range: alto saxophone, alto flute, alto clef. Note contralto, the lowest female voice, which alto is often used loosely for; and that alto means high in Italian, which sounds backwards until you know it once meant the high male part.
1nounaltoA singing voice between the highest and the middle.
“She sings alto in the church choir, just below the sopranos.”
alto is a voice or instrument range.
Italian alto means high, from Latin altus. It named the high male part above the tenor, and only later came to mean the second voice from the top.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂el- (grow)
Italian
alto — high
English, today
alto
Borrowed from Italian alto (“high”). a doublet of old.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA