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falsetto

UK/fɔːlˈsɛt.əʊ/US/fɔlˈsɛt.oʊ/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #11,986 of 15,258neutraltechnical · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: falsettos

Falsetto is a man's voice singing far above its natural range. Light, thin, and unmistakably not the ordinary voice.

It is produced by using only the edges of the vocal folds, and it is a real technique rather than a strain. Choirs, soul singing and a great deal of pop rely on it. The word came from Italian and shares a root with false, which describes how the voice sounds compared with the singer's usual one. Speaking in falsetto is also how people imitate a higher voice, usually for comedy.

Definitions of falsetto

  1. 1nounfalsettoA high singing voice produced above a man's natural range.C1

    “He took the last chorus in falsetto.”

Where it comes from

A falsetto is a little false voice. Italian falsetto is a diminutive of falso, false, because those notes are not the singer's true one.

  1. Italian

    falsetto

  2. English, today

    falsetto

Built from

  • falso · Italian — false

Borrowed from Italian falsetto, from falso (“false”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Music & Instruments

First appears in chapter 6 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

falsetto in the wild

  • There is no evidence that falsetto singing was known in Britain before the early 17th century, when it was occasionally heard on soprano parts.

    Countertenor

  • The whistle register (also called the flute register or flageolet register) is the highest register of the human voice, lying above the modal register and falsetto register.

    Whistle register

  • Bill Ali'iloa Lincoln was a Hawaiian hula singer and musician, noted for his soaring falsetto.

    Bill Aliʻiloa Lincoln

  • Made up of several standards, the album had Charles experiment with falsetto.

    Ray Charles Invites You to Listen

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.