Find the word definition

Crossword clues for overture

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
overture
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ VERB
make
▪ Now Surrey, a dicky bird tells me, are making overtures.
▪ By 1987 he was busy making overtures to Washington.
▪ Arledge, whom Gumbel admires, had made earlier overtures.
▪ After making these overtures, Harding pressed Congress no further and made no additional public moves to support the Dyer Bill.
reject
▪ He began to tell his family she was his girlfriend although in reality she had rejected his overtures.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ sexual overtures
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ At this overture, Alice looked perplexed.
▪ Californians have already begun seeing overtures from retailers as the competition stirs.
▪ Colours echo with overtures of country lane rambles, windswept beaches and wild flower-filled meadows.
▪ He began to tell his family she was his girlfriend although in reality she had rejected his overtures.
▪ In fact, I had once or twice let myself be tempted into making overtures to her.
▪ Opera overtures usually contain all the main musical themes of the opera, and should be listened to with the curtain down.
▪ So in the overture they put Reuben Reeves on stage doing some of Louis's tunes.
▪ The Svoboda overture seemed a minor but palpable discovery.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Overture

Overture \O"ver*ture\, [OF. overture, F. ouverture, fr. OF. ovrir, F. ouvrir. See Overt.]

  1. An opening or aperture; a recess; a chamber. [Obs.]
    --Spenser. ``The cave's inmost overture.''
    --Chapman.

  2. Disclosure; discovery; revelation. [Obs.]

    It was he That made the overture of thy treasons to us.
    --Shak.

  3. A proposal; an offer; a proposition formally submitted for consideration, acceptance, or rejection. ``The great overture of the gospel.''
    --Barrow.

  4. (Mus.) A composition, for a full orchestra, designed as an introduction to an oratorio, opera, or ballet, or as an independent piece; -- called in the latter case a concert overture.

Overture

Overture \O"ver*ture\, v. t. To make an overture to; as, to overture a religious body on some subject.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
overture

mid-13c., "opening, aperture;" early 15c. as "an introductory proposal," from Old French overture "opening; proposal" (Modern French ouverture), from Latin apertura "opening," from aperire "to open, uncover" (see overt). Orchestral sense first recorded in English 1660s.

Wiktionary
overture

n. 1 (context obsolete English) An opening; a recess or chamber. (15th-19th c.) 2 (context obsolete English) disclosure; discovery; revelation 3 (context often in plural English) An approach or proposal made to initiate communication, establish a relationship etc. (from 15th c.)

WordNet
overture
  1. n. orchestral music played at the beginning of an opera or oratorio

  2. something that serves as a preceding event or introduces what follows; "training is a necessary preliminary to employment"; "drinks were the overture to dinner" [syn: preliminary, prelude]

  3. a tentative suggestion designed to elicit the reactions of others; "she rejected his advances" [syn: advance, approach, feeler]

Wikipedia
Overture

Overture ( French ouverture, "opening"; German Ouvertüre, Vorspiel, i.e., "prelude", lit. "play before") in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn began to use the term to refer to independent, self-existing instrumental, programmatic works that presaged genres such as the symphonic poem. These were "at first undoubtedly intended to be played at the head of a programme".

Overture (The Who song)

"Overture" is a song by English rock band The Who, written by Pete Townshend. The track is one of three instrumental tracks released on Tommy, although it does feature some lyrics towards the end; the other two being "Underture" and "Sparks".

On 9 October 1970 song was released as the b-side of "See Me, Feel Me" - which did not chart - and was titled "Overture from Tommy".

Overture (disambiguation)

An overture is the instrumental introduction to a dramatic, choral or, occasionally, instrumental composition. Overture may also refer to:

Overture (Def Leppard song)
  1. redirect On Through the Night

Category:1979 songs Category:Songs written by Rick Savage Category:Songs written by Steve Clark Category:Songs written by Pete Willis Category:Songs written by Joe Elliott

Overture (software)

Overture is a music notation ( scorewriter) program for Windows and Macintosh platforms, written by Don Williams. Visually, the Overture interface resembles Encore, another notation program originally by the same author. However, Overture is the first scorewriter program to feature full Virtual Studio Technology (VST) hosting; the software also plays MIDI files.

Overture (1958 film)

Overture is a 1958 Canadian short documentary film directed by Gian Luigi Polidoro. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. The film depicts the peacekeeping efforts of the United Nations, set against the music of Beethoven's Egmont Overture, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Overture (1965 film)

Overture is a 1965 Hungarian short documentary film written by János Vadász. It won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Overture (Bruckner)

Anton Bruckner composed the Overture in G minor, WAB 98 in 1862–63, during his tuition by Otto Kitzler.

Overture (video game)

Overture is a roguelike adventure video game developed by Black Shell Games, a subsidiary of Black Shell Media LLC. The game was released on January 1, 2015 for Microsoft Windows. In the game, players select from one of 24 characters and travel throughout the game vanquishing enemies, collecting loot, and slaying monsters.

Usage examples of "overture".

The difficulty of satisfying the constraints of variation within the bravura of overture or the rigor of fugue is considerable.

Mahommed Ibrahim, who squatted beside the Yorkshire engineer at the wheel, playing mankalah, he knew it was an overture.

Buddhists than because of their neutralist overtures, the Nhus had to be eliminated.

The symphonic poem, whether or not it originates in the overtures of Beethoven, is mainly your handiwork, since although you yourself were not sufficiently free of the classic formulas to create a symphonic form entirely programmatic, as Strauss has subsequently done, you nevertheless gave him the hint whereby he has profited most.

If this new monster of the sea should succeed single handed in destroying the fleet of six vessels lying in Hampton Roads, the naval warfare of the world would be revolutionized in a day and overtures for peace might be within sight.

Had Basterga, assailing him from a different side, broached the precise story to which, in the case of Agrippa or Albertus Magnus, the Syndic was prepared to give credence, he had certainly received the overture with suspicion if not with contempt.

Painful progressions through narrow tunnels, terrifying drops through space, sudden assaults upon eye and ear by unanalysable lights and sounds, the dread presage of unknown modes of being: all these things, in a confusion somewhat suggestive of the best modern music, formed as it were the overture to his nocturnal drama.

The assistant professors lured over with overtures of promised sex, and grad students wanting in on the train pulling wonderment of the barbecuers from hell.

Ferdy was on the point of suggesting, had not the Viscount nipped such friendly overtures in the bud by scowling upon his victim, offering him the curtest of apologies, handing him his card, climbing into his curricle, and driving off without another word.

A large musical box on the chimney-piece often trilled away at the Overture to Fra Diavolo, or a Selection from William Tell, with a chirruping liveliness that had to be stopped by force on the entrance of a client, and irrepressibly broke out again the moment his back was turned.

John Bull, however, has not yet awakened sufficiently to listen to his overtures, but sits up in bed, dolefully rubbing his eyes, and bemoaning the evanishment of his protectionist dream-- altogether realising tolerably, he and his land, Dr.

Some twenty-five years ago, the Mongols made a similar overture, and directly to Rome.

Denonville thought that he might use them as messengers to their heathen countrymen, and he sent one or more of them to Onondaga with gifts and overtures of peace.

The ships began to line up and land field-pieces for action, when a Sitkan came out with overtures of peace.

As it was she liked him, just as she liked her boss, Tony Alines, but for neither of them did she feel the emotional, or sexual, desire that might have encouraged her to respond to their overtures.