a cappella
adverb or adjective
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A Cappella Has Italian Roots
A cappella arrived in English from Italian sometime around the late-18th century. In Italian, a cappella means "in chapel or choir style." Cappella is the Italian word for "chapel"; the English word chapel is ultimately (if independently) derived from the Medieval Latin word cappella, which is the source of the Italian cappella as well. Scholars once thought all "chapel style" music written before the 1600s was performed a cappella, but modern research has revealed that instruments might have doubled or substituted for some voices back then. Today a cappella describes a purely vocal performance.
Examples of a cappella in a Sentence
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 12 Oct. 2024
On an otherwise unremarkable day, 65,000 punk-rock music enthusiasts who had gathered at London’s Hyde Park to listen to American band Green Day on July 1, 2017, created history by erupting in spontaneous a cappella singing.
—Deepa Nagraj, Forbes, 27 Sep. 2024
Hundreds of phones were lit up in Lyon’s massive Tony Garnier concert hall, and crowds spontaneously continued singing a cappella after the karaoke session in a poignant eulogy to Blanc.
—Lise Pedersen, Variety, 13 Oct. 2024
Guitar, piano, flute, lute, violin, sax, orchestra, rock band, a cappella.
—Sigrid Nunez, The New Yorker, 1 Sep. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“A cappella.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/a%20cappella. Accessed 7 Nov. 2024.
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a cappella
adverb or adjectivefrom Italian a cappella "in chapel style"
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