alto

1. 1.

   of or being the lowest female voice

   Synonymscontralto

   Similarlow
2. 2.

   of or being the highest male voice; having a range above that of tenor

   Synonymscountertenor

   Similarhigh
3. 3.

   (of a musical instrument) second highest member of a group

   “alto clarinet or recorder”

   Similarhigh

   music

Other forms of alto

plural

altoes·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about alto

What does alto mean?

alto means "a singer whose voice lies in the alto clef". That is the primary sense; the word has 8 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in alto?

alto has 2 syllables: al-to. The stress falls on "al". In IPA it is /ˈæltoʊ/.

What is another word for alto?

Close synonyms include contralto, countertenor, contralto, countertenor. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is alto a common word?

alto is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.