Ostinato

//ɒstɪˈnɑtoʊ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A piece of melody, a chord progression, or a bass figure that is repeated over and over as a musical accompaniment.

    "The piece moves in alluring spans of swirling figures, jagged lines and pointillistic outbursts, often prodded forward by ostinatos in the perky piano."

  2. 2
    a musical phrase repeated over and over during a composition wordnet

Example

More examples

"He won't let you in unless you knock the ostinato rhythm from the Mars movement of Holst's The Planets suite."

Etymology

From Italian ostinato (“stubborn”). Doublet of obstinate.

Related phrases

chord progression

More for "ostinato"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.