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bravura

UK/bɹəˈvjʊəɹə/
nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

Bravura is a dazzling display of skill. A bravura performance.

It began in music, describing a passage written to show a singer off. Bravura now covers any performance where the difficulty is part of the point.

Definitions of bravura

  1. 1nounbravuraA dazzling display of skill.C2

    “The bravura in the last movement emptied the hall of doubters.”

bravura is a display.

Where it comes from

Italian bravura, skill, from bravo, good or skilful, the same root as bravado.

  1. Italian

    bravura — skill

  2. English, today

    bravura

Built from

  • bravo · Italian — good, skilful

From Italian bravura (“skill”), from bravo (“good, skilful”). Compare bravado.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

bravura in the wild

  • In classical music a bravura is a style of both music and its performance intended to show off the skill of a performer.

    Bravura

  • The term implies "effect for effect's sake", therefore, while many pieces of Beethoven do require a high skill, they are not described as "bravura".

    Bravura

  • Raffaele Mirate's performance of the bravura aria at the opera's 1851 premiere was hailed as the highlight of the evening.

    La donna è mobile

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.

Related words

the bravo family

brave

bravura — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others