cantilena

Borrowed from Italian or Latin cantilēna.

• IPA^(key): /kæntɪˈleɪnə/

cantilena (plural cantilenas)

1. (music) A vocal melody or instrumental passage in a smooth, lyrical style.
   • 1964, Anthony Burgess, The Eve of St Venus:

     He played a lazy tune that sinuated from C sharp down to G natural and back again. Astonishing that he could flute so lazy a cantilena while chasing nymphs.

   • 1982, Gene Wolfe, chapter 27, in The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun; 3), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, pages 203-204:

     The sounds of insects, of which I am seldom conscious unless I have not heard them in some time, resumed, with a noise that reminded me of the tuning of the strings in the Blue Hall before the first cantilena began, a noise I sometimes used to listen to when I lay on my pallet near the open port of the apprentices' dormitory.

• lancinate

Borrowed from Italian cantilena.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɑntile(ː)nɑ/, [ˈkɑ̝n̪t̪iˌle̞(ː)nɑ̝]
• Rhymes: -enɑ

cantilena

1. cantilena

• IPA^(key): /kan.tiˈlɛ.na/
• Rhymes: -ɛna
• Hyphenation: can‧ti‧lè‧na

Borrowed from Latin cantilēna.

cantilena f (plural cantilene)

1. lullaby

   Synonym: filastrocca

2. singsong
3. whining, cant

• cantilenare

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

cantilena

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

• cilentana, lanciante

Perhaps from the dissimilation of *cantilēla, itself possibly from an unattested verb *cantilāre, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂n-.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [kan.tɪˈɫeː.na]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [kan̪.t̪iˈlɛː.na]

cantilēna f (genitive cantilēnae); first declension

1. song, melody
2. harmony
3. music
4. old song
5. oft-repeated saying
6. gossip

First-declension noun.

• English: cantilena
• Italian: cantilena
• Portuguese: cantilena
• Sicilian: cantilena
• Spanish: cantilena
• Swedish: cantilena

• “cantilena”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “cantilena”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• cantilena in Georges, Karl Ernst, Georges, Heinrich (1913–1918) Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th edition, volume 1, Hahnsche Buchhandlung
• "cantilena", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• cantilena in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Breyer, Gertrud (1993) Etruskisches Sprachgut im Lateinischen unter Ausschluß des spezifisch onomastischen Bereiches (Orientalia Analecta Lovaniensia; 53), Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters en Departement Oriëntalistiek, →ISBN, page 55
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “cano, canere”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 88

cantilena f (plural cantilenas)

1. (Portugal) synonym of parlenda

Borrowed from Latin cantilēna.

• IPA^(key): /kantiˈlena/ [kãn̪.t̪iˈle.na]
• Rhymes: -ena
• Syllabification: can‧ti‧le‧na

cantilena f (plural cantilenas)

1. cantilena

• “cantilena”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024