canto
(ˈkæntəʊ)
Pl. -os.
[a. It. canto song, singing:—L. cantus, f. canĕre to sing.]
† 1. A song, ballad. Obs.
| 1603 G. Fletcher Death of Eliza iii, To heare a Canto of Elizae's death. 1633 P. Fletcher Purple Isl. vi. lxxvi, Then should thy shepherd sing A thousand Canto's in thy heav'nly praise. 1656 Blount Glossogr., Canto, a Song or Sonnet. 1710 Pict. Malice 12 The Canto, or Poem in Dogrell Rhime. |
2. One of the divisions of a long poem; such a part as the minstrel might sing at one ‘fit’. (Used in Italian by Dante, and in Eng. by Spenser.)
| 1590 Spenser F.Q. (heading) Canto I. 1596 Ibid. iv. ii. 54 The which, for length, I will not here pursew, But rather will reserve it for a canto new. 1603 Drayton Bar. Wars i. lxvii. 8 As the next Canto fearfully shall tell. 1759 Dilworth Pope 20 This truly elegant piece in five cantos. 1883 Lloyd Ebb & Flow II. 195 In the twelfth canto of the Purgatorio. |
‖ 3. Mus. [Ital.] See quot. 1879.
| a 1789 Burney Hist. Mus. (ed. 2) II. iv. 325 Canto..the upper part or melody in a composition of many parts. 1879 Hullah in Grove Dict. Mus. I. 306 Technically canto..is understood to represent that part of a concerted piece to which the melody is assigned. With the old masters this was, as a rule, the Tenor; with the modern it is almost always the Soprano. |