Art & MusicGreek → English
Aria
/ˈɑːriə/noun
A solo song in an opera or oratorio, accompanied by the orchestra.
The Greek roots
ἀήρ
aḗr
air, mist
Literally: “air”
Follow a root:ἀήρ15 words
The story of the word
Italian aria means air in the plain sense, the stuff you breathe, from Latin aer and Greek ἀήρ. The musical sense grew the way English air did in phrases like a pleasing air: a melody has a character, an atmosphere about it. English took aria in the 1740s for the moment in an opera when the plot stops and one voice takes the stage. In Homer ἀήρ is mist or haze rather than clear air; the bright upper air was αἰθήρ, which gives ether.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Italian → English
- First recorded
- 1740s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
airaerialethermalaria
In a sentence
She sang the Queen of the Night's second aria without visible effort.