Noun: violoncello
| Singular | violoncello |
| Plural | violoncellos; violoncelli |
Sample Sentences
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A tentative violoncello is playing, invisible and plaintive, then stops with an asthmatic scrape of catgut. [2002, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, Canongate Books (2010), page 110:]
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Preserved under the rock-hard amber varnish was a beautifully crafted mythological scene depicting a nude man in a lush landscape playing a violoncello to a rapt audience of peaceful animals, including a jaguar, lion, swan, fox, peacock, horse, parrot, dogs, badger, deer, bull, ostrich, and no less than an elephant coming over the hill to join them. [2016, Fred R. Kline, Leonardo’s Holy Child, Pegasus Books Ltd., →ISBN:]
Nouns inflected like violoncello
sbirro,
vetturino,
capocollo,
clavicembalo,
decrescendo,
scherzando,
bambino,
concerto,
descrescendo,
zufolo,
stornello,
cavaletto,
inamorato,
zuffolo,
secondo,
rifacimento,
paesano,
pianissimo,
palazzo,
pandoro, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
A borrowing of Italian violoncello (“little violone”), from violone (“an early form of the double bass”) + -cello (“-elle”, forming diminutives), violone itself being derived from viola + -one (“-oon”, forming augmentatives). See: Italian Nouns '
violoncello'.