Other forms: solos
A solo is a passage performed by one musician alone. A guitar solo, sing a solo, a drum solo.
The plural is solos, or soli in formal musical writing. Soloist is the performer. Beyond music, solo means done alone: a solo flight, solo climbing, go solo. As an adverb it works the same way: she flew solo at seventeen. Note solo album, meaning one made by a member of a band on their own, and that solo is Italian and the same word as sole and solitary.
1nounsoloA passage performed by one musician alone.
“The guitarist played a long solo while the rest of the band waited.”
2adjectivedoneDone alone.
“It was a solo flight and she was nineteen.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
solo is something done alone.
Italian solo comes from Latin solus, alone — the same root as sole, solitary, solitude and desolate. Musical terms in English are overwhelmingly Italian, and this is one of the plainest of them.
Latin
sōlus
Italian
solo
English, today
solo
Built from
Italian solo, from Latin sōlus, probably related to se (“himself”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA