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baritone

UK/ˈbæɹ.ɪ.təʊn/US/ˈbæɹ.ɪ.toʊn/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,116 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: baritones

A baritone is a male voice between tenor and bass. A rich baritone, sing baritone, a baritone role.

It is the commonest male range, which is why opera gives its tenors the heroes and its baritones the villains, fathers and friends — there are simply more of them. The word also names instruments in that range. Note that the Greek means heavy-toned, from barys, heavy, the same root as barometer.

Definitions of baritone

  1. 1nounbaritoneA male voice between tenor and bass.B2+

    “The hero of the opera was sung by a young baritone with a warm, rich voice.”

baritone is a voice range.

Where it comes from

Italian baritono comes from Greek barytonos — barys, heavy, plus tonos, tone. Barometer comes from the same heaviness.

  1. Ancient Greek

    βαρύτονος

  2. Italian

    baritono

  3. English, today

    baritone

Built from

  • βαρύς · Ancient Greek — heavy
  • τόνος · Ancient Greek — tone

From Italian baritono, from Ancient Greek βαρύτονος, from βαρύς (“heavy”) + τόνος (“tone”). a doublet of baryton and barytone.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Music & Instruments

Practise this word

baritone in the wild

  • Ukuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone.

    Ukulele

  • Ukuleles generally have four nylon strings tuned to GCEA (except baritone, which is normally tuned DGBE).

    Ukulele

  • A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types.

    Baritone

  • Subtypes of baritone include the baryton-Martin baritone (light baritone), lyric baritone, Kavalierbariton, Verdi baritone, dramatic baritone, baryton-noble baritone, and the bass-baritone.

    Baritone

  • In North America, for most of the 20th century, the term baritone also referred to similar instruments with a wider bore closer to the euphonium.

    Baritone horn

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.