Some 16th-century Italian clergymen tried to ban coffee because they believed it to be “satanic.” However, Pope Clement VII loved coffee so much that he lifted the ban and had coffee baptized in 1600.
ORCHESTRA
orchestra
(noun) seating on the main floor in a theater
orchestra
(noun) a musical organization consisting of a group of instrumentalists including string players
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
orchestra (plural orchestras or orchestrae)
(music) A large group of musicians who play together on various instruments, usually including some from strings, woodwind, brass and/or percussion; the instruments played by such a group.
A semicircular space in front of the stage used by the chorus in Ancient Greek and Hellenistic theatres.
The area in a theatre or concert hall where the musicians sit, immediately in front of and below the stage, sometimes (also) used by other performers.
Usage notes
• In British English, "The orchestra are tuning up" is often used, implying the individual members. In the US, one would almost always hear "The orchestra is tuning up", implying a collective.
Anagrams
• carthorse, horsecart, rheocrats
Source: Wiktionary
Or"ches*tra, n. Etym: [L. orchestra, Gr. orchestre.]
1. The space in a theater between the stage and the audience; -- originally appropriated by the Greeks to the chorus and its evolutions, afterward by the Romans to persons of distinction, and by the moderns to a band of instrumental musicians.
2. The place in any public hall appropriated to a band of instrumental musicians.
3. (Mus.) (a) Loosely: A band of instrumental musicians performing in a theater, concert hall, or other place of public amusement. (b) Strictly: A band suitable for the performance of symphonies, overtures, etc., as well as for the accompaniment of operas, oratorios, cantatas, masses, and the like, or of vocal and instrumental solos. (c) A band composed, for the largest part, of players of the various viol instruments, many of each kind, together with a proper complement of wind instruments of wood and brass; -- as distinguished from a military or street band of players on wind instruments, and from an assemblage of solo players for the rendering of concerted pieces, such as septets, octets, and the like.
4. (Mus.)
Definition: The instruments employed by a full band, collectively; as, an orchestra of forty stringed instruments, with proper complement of wind instruments.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
6 January 2025
PREMATURELY
(adverb) (of childbirth) before the end of the normal period of gestation; “the child was born prematurely”
Coffee Trivia
