cadenza

Borrowed from Italian cadenza, from Latin cadentia. Doublet of cadence and chance.

• IPA^(key): /kəˈdɛnzə/

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cadenza (plural cadenzas or cadenze)

1. (music) A part of a piece of music, such as a concerto, that is very decorative and is played by a single musician.
   • 1993, John Banville, Ghosts:

     Yes, laugh, as I want to laugh for instance in the concert hall when the orchestra trundles to a stop and the virtuoso at his piano, hunched like a demented vet before the bared teeth of this enormous black beast of sound, lifts up deliquescent hands and prepares to plunge into the cadenza.

cadenza (third-person singular simple present cadenzas, present participle cadenzaing, simple past and past participle cadenzaed)

1. (South Africa, slang) To become agitated or excited.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /kaˈdɛn.t͡sa/
• Rhymes: -ɛntsa
• Hyphenation: ca‧dèn‧za

From Vulgar Latin *cadentia, from Latin cadēns, present participle of cadō (“to fall”). Doublet of chance.

cadenza f (plural cadenze)

1. cadence
2. rhythm

• cadenzare

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

cadenza

1. inflection of cadenzare:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

• cadenza in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana