Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A group of singers who perform together, usually singing multi-part compositions with more than one singer for each part.
- noun A group of vocalists and dancers who support the soloists and leading performers in operas, musical comedies, and revues.
- noun A musical composition usually in four or more parts written for a large number of singers.
- noun A refrain in a song, especially one in which the soloist is joined by other performers or audience members.
- noun A solo section based on the main melody of a popular song and played by a member of the group.
- noun A group of persons who speak or sing in unison a given part or composition in drama or poetry recitation.
- noun An actor in Elizabethan drama who recites the prologue and epilogue to a play and sometimes comments on the action.
- noun A group in a classical Greek drama whose songs and dances present an exposition of or, in later tradition, a disengaged commentary on the action.
- noun The portion of a classical Greek drama consisting of choric dance and song.
- noun A speech, song, or other utterance made in concert by many people.
- noun A simultaneous utterance by a number of people.
- transitive & intransitive verb To sing or utter in chorus.
- idiom (in chorus) All together; in unison.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To sing or join in the chorus of: as, to
chorus a song. - To exclaim or call out in concert.
- noun A dance. Specifically, in the ancient Greek drama— A dance performed by a number of persons in a ring, in honor of Bacchus, accompanied by the singing of the sacred dithyrambic odes. From this simple rite was developed the Greek drama, In continuation of the early tradition, a company of persons, represented as of age, sex, and estate appropriate to the play, who took part through their leader, the coryphæus, with the actors in the dialogue of a drama, and sang their sentiments at stated intervals when no actor was on the stage.
- noun One of the songs executed by the chorus.
- noun In music: A company of singers, especially an organized company, such as singers in a church or a choral society, In an oratorio, opera, or concert, the general company of singers, as distinguished from the soloists, A part of a song in which the listeners join with the singer; a refrain; also, any recurring refrain or burden, A musical composition intended to be sung in harmony by a company of singers, usually by four voices. A double chorus is for eight voices, The compound or mixture stops of an organ. In the tenth century, an instrument, probably the bagpipe, In the fifteenth century, the drone of a bagpipe or of the accompaniment strings of the crowd. Formerly, in Scotland, a loud trumpet.
- noun A union of voices or sounds, or a company of persons, resembling a chorus.
- noun In zoology, a genus of mollusks.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Antiq.) A band of singers and dancers.
- noun (Gr. Drama) A company of persons supposed to behold what passed in the acts of a tragedy, and to sing the sentiments which the events suggested in couplets or verses between the acts; also, that which was thus sung by the chorus.
- noun obsolete An interpreter in a dumb show or play.
- noun (Mus.) A company of singers singing in concert.
- noun (Mus.) A composition of two or more parts, each of which is intended to be sung by a number of voices.
- noun (Mus.) Parts of a song or hymn recurring at intervals, as at the end of stanzas; also, a company of singers who join with the singer or choir in singer or choir in singing such parts.
- noun The simultaneous of a company in any noisy demonstration.
- intransitive verb To sing in chorus; to exclaim simultaneously.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A group of singers and dancers in the religious festivals of ancient Greece
- noun A group of people in a play or performance who recite together.
- noun A group of singers; singing group who perform together.
- noun A repeated part of a song, also called the
refrain . - noun A setting or feature in electronic music that makes one voice sound like many.
- noun figuratively A group of people or animals who make sounds together
- noun theater An actor who reads the opening and closing lines of a play.
- verb To
echo a particularsentiment . - verb To sing the chorus.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb utter in unison
- noun any utterance produced simultaneously by a group
- noun the part of a song where a soloist is joined by a group of singers
- noun a group of people assembled to sing together
- verb sing in a choir
- noun a company of actors who comment (by speaking or singing in unison) on the action in a classical Greek play
- noun a body of dancers or singers who perform together
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The sound of their springing to life in chorus is the sign that the electricity has been cut again.
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The sound of their springing to life in chorus is the sign that the electricity has been cut again.
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The sound of their springing to life in chorus is the sign that the electricity has been cut again.
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"Do read some more," came in chorus from the girls, who were highly amused.
Three Girls in a Flat Jean Yandell Loughborough 1892
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To the chorus is added the mode of giving thanks, by a sacrifice and joyful singing
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To the chorus is added, as a reason for praise, an example of the extreme distress from which they had been delivered -- extreme hunger, the severest privation of a journey in the desert.
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A commentary the next day on Sri Lankan state TV network, ITN, written by the editor of a state newspaper, Mahinda Abeysundara, said a businessman had bet about 18,000 dollars on a Pakistan victory and that there had therefore been what he called a "chorus to change the game".
BBC News - Home 2011
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A chorus is beginning to develop against more Fed action, which has come to be known as quantitative easing (QE).
Bernanke Preps Markets For Further Fed Action Despite Questions About Impact The Huffington Post News Team 2010
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A chorus is beginning to develop against more Fed action, which has come to be known as quantitative easing (QE).
Bernanke Preps Markets For Further Fed Action Despite Questions About Impact The Huffington Post News Team 2010
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The chorus is still familiar to many people, but the verses are not as well known: (A “Lucifer” was a brand of match and a “fag,” of course, was a cigarette.)
Archive 2009-05-01 2009
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