Meaning of 'orchestra' (Webster Dictionary)
- The space in a theater between the stage and the
audience; -- originally appropriated by the Greeks to the chorus and
its evolutions, afterward by the Romans to persons of distinction, and
by the moderns to a band of instrumental musicians.
- The place in any public hall appropriated to a band of
instrumental musicians.
- Loosely: A band of instrumental musicians performing in
a theater, concert hall, or other place of public amusement.
- Strictly: A band suitable for the performance of
symphonies, overtures, etc., as well as for the accompaniment of
operas, oratorios, cantatas, masses, and the like, or of vocal and
instrumental solos.
- A band composed, for the largest part, of players of the
various viol instruments, many of each kind, together with a proper
complement of wind instruments of wood and brass; -- as distinguished
from a military or street band of players on wind instruments, and from
an assemblage of solo players for the rendering of concerted pieces,
such as septets, octets, and the like.
- The instruments employed by a full band, collectively;
as, an orchestra of forty stringed instruments, with proper complement
of wind instruments.
Definition
[ n.]