canto

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian canto (“song, singing”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Latin cantus (“song, a singing”),^[2][4][5][7] from canō (“to sing”),^[2][4][8][5] from Proto-Indo-European *kan- (“to sing”).^[5] It is related to chant, cant and canticle.^[6][8][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A main division of a long poem: 1590, in a heading of Spenser's Faerie Queene.^[2][4][7] Weekley also says it is first found in Spenser,^[9] while Etymonline and Dictionary.com give the broader 1580s.^[5][10]

Semantic evolution

English took the word not in its general Italian sense of "song" but in the special literary one that Dante had already used for sections of a long poem.^[5][11] The plain sense "song, ballad" followed in English only from 1603, and died out after 1710.^[2][12] Johnson (1755) defined it as a book or section of a poem, and quoted Twelfth Night for "loyal cantos of contemned love".^[13] In music it is the melody or upper part of a composition, which the OED records from 1782 in Burney and the Shorter Oxford dates to the early 18th century.^[2][12] The compound canto fermo, the traditional unalterable vocal music of the Church, is recorded from 1789.^[5] Slang later extended the idea of a division to a part of a sports contest, such as an inning of baseball.^[7]

Timeline

• 1590 – a main division of a long poem.^[2][4][7]
• 1603 – a song or ballad (obsolete by 1710).^[2][12]
• 1782 – in music, the melody or upper part.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. One of the main divisions of a long poem: The third canto opens in a dark forest.^{[14][7][2][12]}
2. (music) The melody or upper part of a composition.^[7][12][2]
3. (slang) A division of a sports contest, such as an inning of baseball.^[7]
4. (obsolete, 1603–1710) A song or ballad.^[2][12]

Related words

• chant
• cant
• canticle
• canzonet

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins