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Viola   Listen
noun
Viola  n.  (Mus.) An instrument in form and use resembling the violin, but larger, and a fifth lower in compass.
Viola da braccio, the tenor viol, or viola, a fifth lower than the violin. Its part is written in the alto clef, hence it is sometimes called the alto.
Viola da gamba, an instrument resembling the viola, but larger, and held between the knees. It is now rarely used.
Viola da spalla, an instrument formerly used, resembling the viola, and intermediate in size between the viola and the viola da gamba.
Viola di amore, a viol, larger than the viola, having catgut strings upon, and brass or steel wires under, the keyboard. These, sounding sympathetically with the strings, yield a peculiarly soft and silvery sound. It is now seldom used.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Viola" Quotes from Famous Books



... a rock in a violent storm, and a very small number of the ship's company escaped with their lives. The captain of the vessel, with a few of the sailors that were saved, got to land in a small boat, and with them they brought Viola safe on shore, where she, poor lady, instead of rejoicing at her own deliverance, began to lament her brother's loss; but the captain comforted her with the assurance that he had seen her brother, when the ship spilt, fasten himself to a strong ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... plays in one without much connection. The Viola play is improbable. Why did Shakespeare omit that part of the story which tells us that Silla (Viola) had seen the Duke when he was shipwrecked on Cyprus where she lived, and had fallen in love with him? In ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... always happy to join in these impromptu musical assemblies, when occasion offered, although performing music was one of the few things which he never succeeded in doing well. He invariably played the viola on these occasions,—perhaps, as Schindler hints about Beethoven, because indifferent playing on the viola is not so noticeable as on other instruments. As was to have been expected from so pronounced ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... Lost and the Midsummer-Night's Dream. Then came a time, lasting some half-dozen years, during which he composed the most mature and humorous of his English History plays (the plays with Falstaff in them), and the best of his romantic comedies (the plays with Beatrice and Jaques and Viola in them). There are no tragedies belonging to these half-dozen years, nor any dramas approaching tragedy. But now, from about 1601 to about 1608, comes tragedy after tragedy—Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Timon of Athens, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus; ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... hardiest and fiercest prowler of the roof and the fire-escape but would fly the sound of my voice and leave me forlorn amid the withered foliage of my dream. The street sparrows, pestiferous and persistent as they are, would forsake my sylvan pageant if I spoke of the Bird-foot Violet as the 'Viola Pedata'; and the commonest cur would run howling if he beard the gentle Poison Dogwood maligned as the 'Rhus Venenata'. The very milk-cans would turn to their native pumps in disgust from my attempt to invoke our simple American Cowslip ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... exclaimed Vaura; "surely, Mrs. Haughton, you don't condemn, 'As you like it,' 'Much ado about nothing,' and the bill for to-night—and with brilliant Neilson! for their heaviness—I doubt if Rosalind, Beatrice, or Viola would agree with you, unless it be Viola, who may have found the Duke; so, thank Fate, our lovers are more ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... changed. It must either have been wrongly classified at one of the two periods, or the vocal keyboard—so to speak—transposed a little higher or lower. The character of the instrument remains the same; a viola strung as a violin would still retain ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... tragic conflicts of life, the same sense of the greatness, the splendour of human nature, which is most triumphant when most it seems to fail; and on the other side at least something of that exquisite, that almost unimaginable grace of the romantic comedy, of the world of Portia and Viola and Beatrice and Miranda. I do not think that the unity of the great art of Europe, the comparative insignificance of merely national characteristics and historical circumstances can find ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... beautiful than she is as a slave to fashion's fickle fancy, while the requirements of life, health, and comfort would be fully met? Again, let us compare one of the plates of the sixties with its wonderful expanse of skirt to the simple, graceful attire of Miss Marlowe as Viola in the "Twelfth Night," and laying aside all preconceived opinions (with the influence which we have seen the unusual plays in fashioning our ideas of propriety,) does not our reason and common sense sustain the view that the latter is far more ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... the Shrew and the Demure Ophelia; the Rose of Elsinore Rosalind and Celia; the Friends Juliet; the White Dove of Verona Beatrice and Hero; the Cousins Olivia; the Lady of Illyria Hermione; the Russian Princess Viola; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various

... developed by Wagner, Strauss and Tchaikowsky, have become conventional means of expression. Some of his most celebrated and satisfying works, in addition to those mentioned, are the Harold in Italy Symphony, with its personification by a solo viola of the chief character; the Romeo and Juliet Symphony, for both vocal and instrumental forces (of which the ball-scene with its wondrous love-melody and the Queen Mab Scherzo—unequalled for daintiness—represent ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... is guilty of tampering with the Witch of Endor, and is alarmed at the Ghost of Samuel, whose words distinctly embody and vibrate the fears of his own heart, and he "falls straightway all along on the earth." "The exquisite refinement of Viola triumphs over her masculine attire." The exquisite refinement of Ruth triumphs in the midst ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... responsibility as compared with thirty per cent. for the remaining voices. In all the famous quartet organizations, Joachim, Hellmesberger, etc., the first violin has been the directing instrument and has set the pace. As chairman it has been his duty to say when second violin, viola and 'cello were entitled to hold the floor. Hellmesberger, in fact, considered himself the whole quartet." Mr. Kneisel smiled and showed me a little book of Hellmesberger's Vienna programs. ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... these creators of mould and soil. Among these plants we reckon a small ARBUTUS, a diminutive myrtle, a little dandelion, a small creeping CRASSULA, the common PINGUICULA alpina, a yellow variety of the VIOLA palustris, the STATICE armeria, or sea pink, a kind of burnet, the RANUNCULUS lapponicus, the HOLCUS odoratus, the common celery, with the ARABIS heterophylla. Soon after we observed, in places that are still covered with the above-mentioned mossy ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... vehement and passionate. Coleridge declared that to see him was "reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning." Readers of the dramatic criticism of Hazlitt and Lamb will recall tributes to Kean and to other favorite actors, especially perhaps their praise of Mrs. Jordan's Viola and Rosalind. Macready for forty years maintained the great traditions of English acting, and during his managements of Drury Lane sought to retain for Shakespeare's plays their preeminence on the ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... aptly receiue it) into a most hideous opinion of his rage, skill, furie, and impetuositie. This will so fright them both, that they wil kill one another by the looke, like Cockatrices. Enter Oliuia and Viola. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... they lived has not been discovered. The mature age and premature maternity of Mrs. Shakespeare justify inferences which his mysterious departure for London does not weaken, and his long absence, his infrequent visits to Stratford, the Duke's injunction to Viola—"let still the woman take An Elder than herself"—and the ironical bequest of his second best bed, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... viola!" said Agostino. "We all trust you. Look at Colonel Corte, and take him for Count Orso. Take me for pretty Camillo. Take Marco for Michiela; Giulio for Leonardo; Carlo for Cupid. Take the Chief for the audience. Take him for a frivolous ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... its popularity for use in beds and borders. It is perfectly hardy, the habit is good, and it continues in bloom for several months in the year. The treatment prescribed for Pansy is also suitable for Viola. ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... "blending with every atom of her frame." The love that is so chaste and dignified in Portia—so airy-delicate, and fearless in Miranda—so sweetly confiding in Perdita—so playfully fond in Rosalind—so constant in Imogem—so devoted in Desdemona—so fervent in Helen—so tender in Viola,—is each and all of these in Juliet. All these remind us of her; but she reminds us of nothing but her own sweet self: or if she does, it is of the Grismunda, or the Lisetta, or the Fiamminetta of Boccaccio, to whom she is allied, not in the character or circumstances, but in the truly Italian ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various

... Miss Marlowe is ripe humanity, in Ophelia that same humanity broken down from within. As Viola, in "Twelfth Night" she is the woman let loose, to be bewitching in spite of herself; and here again her art is tested, and triumphs, for she is bewitching, and never trespasses into jauntiness on ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... brass-band; orchestra; orchestrina^. [Stringed instruments], monochord^, polychord^; harp, lyre, lute, archlute^; mandola^, mandolin, mandoline^; guitar; zither; cither^, cithern^; gittern^, rebeck^, bandurria^, bandura, banjo; bina^, vina^; xanorphica^. viol, violin, fiddle, kit; viola, viola d'amore [Fr.], viola di gamba [It]; tenor, cremona, violoncello, bass; bass viol, base viol; theorbo^, double base, contrabasso^, violone^, psaltery [Slang]; bow, fiddlestick^. piano, pianoforte; harpsichord, clavichord, clarichord^, manichord^; clavier, spinet, virginals, dulcimer, hurdy-gurdy, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... his sister Viola, a young gentleman and lady of Messaline, were twins, and (which was accounted a great wonder) from their birth they so much resembled each other, that, but for the difference in their dress, they could not be known apart. They were both born in one hour, and in one hour they were ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... its newer adjunct. And are the Bicentennial buildings so beautiful? At best we have exchanged the fraudulent wooden ramparts of Alumni Hall for the equally fraudulent inside columns of these newer buildings. It is a mercy that there is no style and changing fashion in elm trees. As Viola might have remarked about the Campus: it were excellently ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... the restaurant there was a faint murmur of delighted surprise from the tables they passed; and one stout, but sentimental baroness cried, "Viola des seraphin!" ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... or Viola and her companions in Twelfth Night, or Beatrice and Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing, or Ariel in The Tempest playing pranks on the bewildered mariners and singing of the joys of life which come as a reward ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... faithfully represented in the German version. This moon-stricken Pierrot chants—rather declaims—his woes and occasional joys to the music of the Viennese composer, whose score requires a reciter (female), a piano, flute (also piccolo), clarinet (also bass clarinet), violin (also viola), and violoncello. The piece is described as a melodrama. I listened to it on a Sunday morning, and I confess that Sunday at noon is not a time propitious to the mood musical. It was also the first time I had heard a note of Schoenberg's. In vain I had tried to get ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... we found the measure postponed. The morning this news arrived, we walked about the town till dinner, and in every street people were collected in groupes, and engaged in eager discussion. An acquaintance whom we happened to meet, instead of the usual salutations, exclaimed "Nous viola quittes, ils s'en vont les brigands" ["At length we are quit of them—the rogues are going about their business."]; and I observed several recontres of this sort, where people skipped and caracoled, as though unable to contain their satisfaction. Nothing was talked of ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... Intende jam nervos, habebis Participes opera Camoenas. Non ulla musis pagina gratior, Quam quae severis ludicra jungere Novit, fatigatamque nugis Utilibus recreare mentem. Texente nymphis serta Lycoride, Rosae ruborem sic viola adjuvat Immista, sic Iris refulget ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... The action has stood still nearly all through the act, but no one would wish to miss a bar of any other portion. The king's reproaches of his friend and vassal for his treachery, and the music with its gloomy orchestration, mostly of horns, bassoons, viola, and lower strings, with occasional English horn, and the deepest notes of the clarinet interspersed with wails of the bass-clarinet, are profoundly touching and proceed naturally out of the situation. Had there been nothing more ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight

... was usual to have a "chest of viols," which consisted of six, viz., two trebles, two tenors, and two basses (see note in North's "Memoirs of Musick," ed. Rimbault, p. 70). The bass viol was also called the 'viola da gamba', because it was held between ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... bore a most striking resemblance to her brother Fergus; so much so that they might have played Viola and Sebastian with the same exquisite effect produced by the appearance of Mrs. Henry Siddons and her brother, Mr. William Murray, in these characters. They had the same antique and regular correctness of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... sarcasm, to be wasted on Sir Andrew and Sir Toby. The critics neglected to note what the Duke says about "Come away, come away, Death," and they prattled in their blindness as to whether this must not really have been sung by Viola, all the while insensible to the poignant dramatic value of it as warbled by the ironic Clown in the presence of the blinded pair. But indeed the whole of Twelfth Night is burdened with melody; behind ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... Per[vs]i['c] came up to him and asked for his passport. "Take yourself off!" shouted the intruder, as he pulled a bomb out of his trouser pocket. Per[vs]i['c] grappled with him and soon overpowered him. And outside the house four other fascisti, Armano Viola, Carpinelli, Bellia and Murolo, were captured. They claimed to be journalists, and it is quite true that Viola is on the staff of the notorious Vedetta Italiana; but when he comes into a foreign country as a special correspondent and ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... doubt that man must go on conquering and to conquer for millions of years to come? The world-will goes its way. We cannot resist. Nobody asks whether we are happy. The will that works towards the infinite asks only whom it can use for its ends, and who is useless. Viola tout." ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... after a long struggle, and the unexpected, inexplicable manner in which she had abandoned it. It was to recall, too, the delightful evenings I had spent under her influence, the pleasure I had had in the passion of her "Juliet," the poetic charm of her "Viola"; the graceful witchery of her "Rosalind"; how I had smiled with her "Portia"; laughed with her "Beatrice"; wept with her "Camille"; in fact how I had yielded myself up to her magnetism with that ecstatic pleasure in which one gets the best joys of every passion, because one does not ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich

... century Porthos—who imagines himself a grand seigneur and has not a sixpence to his name but hires a showy suit of clothes to go to the palace, another who is an intimate at Court (o mesmo pa[c,]o) but who to satisfy a passing passion has to sell boots and viola and pawn his saddle, the poor gentleman's servant (mo[c,]o) who sleeps on a chest, or is rudely awakened at midnight to light the lamp and hold the inkpot while his master writes down his latest inspiration in his song-book, the incompetent Lisbon doctors with their stereotyped ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... Adelon. Knights and ladies, elves and pages, monks and flower girls, all mingled gaily in the dance. Sweet voices and rich melody filled the air, and so with mirth and music the masquerade went on. "Has your Highness seen the Lady Viola tonight?" asked a gallant troubadour of the fairy queen who floated down the hall upon ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... solely. The raw and unvarnished wood, with the parts between the threads swollen from damp, begrimed and repeatedly washed by repairers, presents anything but a pleasing spectacle even when the interior of a fine "Strad" or Joseph is laid bare. Many years ago a friend owning a fine Cremonese viola asked me to open it and find out the cause of some buzzing or rattling within that had not been evident till that time. After an examination, finding that opening it would be absolutely necessary, I asked him whether he would like to see ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick

... Were Down and Out," by James Mather Mosely, are two typical newspaper interviews with representative men. Mr. Mosely shows much aptitude as a reporter, having an almost professional ease and fluency. This is not literature, but it is good journalism. "The Dinner Never Paid For," by Viola Jameson, is a piece of characteristic light fiction; commendably innocuous, and not at all overburdened with philosophical complexity. "The Secret of Success," by Edith L. Clark, is a promising bit of didactic ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... But, since it is the function of the critic to criticise, let us justify our role by noting that the scoring throughout tends to glutinousness, like that of the pre-war Carlsbad plum; further, that a solo on the muted viola against an accompaniment of sixteen sarrusophones is only effective if the sarrusophones are prepared to roar like sucking-doves, which, as LEAR would have said, "they seldom if ever do." Still, on the whole the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various

... drawing. The choice of colours includes marone, blue, green, and gold. The ornaments, as usual, consist of sprays of ivy leaf and grounds filled in with treillages of natural flowers, among which are the daisy, viola tricolor, thistle, cornbottle, and wild stock. Fruits and vegetables also, as grapes, field peas, and strawberries. The miniatures include a few ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... been to all intents and purposes the same had they never heard of each other until after the rise of the curtain. In Twelfth Night there is a semblance of a retrospective exposition in the scene between Viola and the Captain; but it is of the simplest nature, and conveys no information beyond what, at a later period, would have been imparted on the ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... loved him, and his kindness and sincerity enabled him to retain their respect as well as their affection. In all his activity he was never too busy to save some time for the family circle, where, in later life, he would take the viola part in the concerted music that cheered his domestic hearth. It is sad to think of the poor wife's fate in contrast with so much family happiness. After Bach's death, in 1750, she struggled bravely to support her children, but became gradually ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... Tupper: "Viola and Olivia." The verses are not of much significance. The etching by Deverell, however defective in technique, claims more attention, as the Viola was drawn from Miss Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, whom Deverell ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... try," said Allan promptly. "Everything's going beautifully. Philip's happy, and Angela's going to be gloriously dirty in a minute, which will give her nurse something to wash. You know how bitter Viola is about never getting the children to herself ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer

... poor, pale face of Romeo's fancied death; Cold rant of Richard; Henry's fustian roar Which frights away that sleep he invocates; Wronged Valentine's unnatural haste to yield; Too-silly shifts of maids that mask as men In faint disguises that could ne'er disguise — Viola, Julia, Portia, Rosalind; Fatigues most drear, and needless overtax Of speech obscure that had as lief be plain; Last I forgive (with more delight, because 'Tis more to do) the labored-lewd discourse That e'en thy young invention's youngest heir ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... of the heroine, Charlotte undertook the part of her lover. Their success prompted them to appear in "Romeo and Juliet." Other plays, in which both could appear, were afterward selected—such, for instance, as "Twelfth Night," in which Charlotte played Viola to the Olivia of Susan—so that the engagement of one might compel the engagement of the other. Susan, however, quitted the stage in 1847, to become the wife of Dr. Sheridan Muspratt, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... The King v. Cundick.—This was an indictment against the defendant, undertaker to the Horsemonger-lane gaol, for a mis-demeanour, in corruptly selling for dissection the body of a capital convict, after he had been executed, contrary to his duty, in viola-tion of public decency, and the scandal of religion. There were various counts in the indictment, charging the offence in different ways. The defendant ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... in Clarke County. Milly and Charley Green was my mammy and pappy and dey b'longed to Marse Daniel Miller. Mammy, she was born and raised in Clarke County but my pappy, he come from southwest Georgia. I done forgot de town whar he was brung up. Dere was seven of us chillun: me and Viola, Lula, Fannie, Rene, Bob, and Isaac. Chillun what warn't big 'nough to wuk in de fields or in de house stayed 'round de yard and played in de sand piles wid ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... the rumours became bad. The German advance to the north was said to be considerable and rapid. Orders came that all the British Batteries were to pull out and park that night at Villa Viola, behind Gradisca, "for duty on another part of the Front." Probably, we thought, we were going north. "The gun concentration up there must be awful," said the Major. I told Cotes that we were probably ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... pale, fat, pear-shaped face, her grizzled hair parted above it and twisted to a large outstanding knob behind. She wore eyeglasses and peered through them at her music with intelligent intensity and profound humility. The violin was played by an enormous young man with red hair, and the viola, second violin and 'cello by three young women, all of ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... of this game which the dolls could vary indefinitely. The dwarfs also gave concerts and taught her to play the lute, the viola, the theorbo, the lyre, ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France

... Percy Bysshe Shelley "I Remember, I Remember" Thomas Hood My Lost Youth Henry Wadsworth Longfellow "Voice of the Western Wind" Edmund Clarence Stedman "Langsyne, When Life Was Bonnie" Alexander Anderson The Shoogy-Shoo Winthrop Packard Babylon Viola Taylor The Road of Remembrance Lizette Woodworth Reese The Triumph of Forgotten Things Edith M. Thomas In the Twilight James Russell Lowell An Immorality Ezra Pound Three Seasons Christina Georgina Rossetti ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various



Words linked to "Viola" :   love-in-idleness, violet, string, field pansy, Johnny-jump-up, wild pansy, Viola tricolor, viola clef, herbaceous plant, horned violet, viola d'amore, Viola conspersa, dilleniid dicot genus, Viola cornuta, viola da braccio, Violaceae, heartsease, family Violaceae, tufted pansy, herb, pink of my John, Viola ocellata, Viola reichenbachiana, Viola arvensis, genus Viola, pansy, Viola rostrata, Viola tricolor hortensis, violet family



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