Other forms: violas
A viola is a slightly larger, deeper-voiced relative of the violin. Play the viola, a viola part, the viola section.
It reads in the alto clef, which almost no other instrument uses, and that alone makes it a specialism. It sits in the middle of the string sound and is felt more than heard, which is why viola jokes exist and why the part matters. The name is Latin for violet.
1nounviolaA stringed instrument larger and deeper than a violin.
“She plays the viola in the school orchestra, sitting between the violins and the cellos.”
viola is an instrument.
From Latin viola, a violet. The violin is a diminutive of it — a little viola.
Latin
viola — violet
English, today
viola
From Latin viola (“violet”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA