stretto

Borrowed from Italian stretto. Doublet of strait and strict.

• IPA^(key): /ˈstɹɛtəʊ/
• Rhymes: -ɛtəʊ

stretto (countable and uncountable, plural strettos or stretti)

1. (music) The presence of two close or overlapping statements of the subject of a fugue, especially towards the end.
   • 1902 [1898], [George] Bernard Shaw, The Perfect Wagnerite […] ‎^[1], second edition, London: Grant Richards, page 3:

     In classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell us, first subjects and second subjects, free fantasias, recapitulations, and codas; there are fugues, with counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal points; there are passacaglias on ground basses, canons ad hypodiapente, and other ingenuities, which have, after all, stood or fallen by their prettiness as much as the simplest folk-tune.

2. (music) An acceleration in the tempo of an opera that produces an ending climax.

stretto (not comparable)

1. (music) With gradually increasing speed.

stretto (not comparable)

1. (music) Having gradually increasing speed.
   • 1960, Thomas Pynchon, Entropy:

     So that over and above the public components – holidays, tourist attractions – there are private meanderings, linked to the climate as if this spell were a stretto passage in the year’s fugue: haphazard weather, aimless loves, unpredicted commitments…

• totters, stotter, Totters, tortest, rottest

From Latin strictus, perfect passive participle of stringō.

• IPA^(key): /ˈstret.to/

• Audio:

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• Rhymes: -etto
• Hyphenation: strét‧to

stretto (feminine stretta, masculine plural stretti, feminine plural strette, superlative strettissimo)

1. narrow

   Antonym: largo

2. tight
3. strict
4. (linguistics) close

stretto m (plural stretti)

1. strait

stretto (feminine stretta, masculine plural stretti, feminine plural strette)

1. past participle of stringere

• strettura
• ristretto

Unadapted borrowing from Italian stretto.

stretto

1. stretto