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The word canto is derived from the Italian word for "song" or "singing", which comes from the Latin cantus, "song", from the infinitive verb canere, "to sing". [1] [2] In Old Saxon poetry , Old English poetry , and Middle English poetry, the term fitt was sometimes used to denote a section of a long narrative poem, and that term is sometimes ...
Canto, major division of an epic or other long narrative poem. An Italian term, derived from the Latin cantus (“song”), it probably originally indicated a portion of a poem that could be sung or chanted by a minstrel at one sitting. Though early oral epics, such as Homer’s, are divided into.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Oct 9, 2017 · canto (n.) 1580s, "a section of a long poem," used in Italian by Dante, in English first by Spenser, from Italian canto "song," from Latin cantus "song, a singing; bird-song," from past participle stem of canere "to sing" (from PIE root *kan- "to sing").
Mar 11, 2019 · The Italian language has a profound influence on the English language, and hundreds of words qualify for the list of English words of Italian origin.
canto, major division of an epic or other long narrative poem. An Italian term, derived from the Latin cantus (“song”), it probably originally indicated a portion of a poem that could be sung or chanted by a minstrel at one sitting.
The word “canto” means “song” in Italian, but the first examples of cantos date back to the time of Homer when epics were recited orally. Cantos are used for epic poems such as Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ and ‘Iliad’. These poems can reach thousands of lines and even thousands of pages. Cantos do not follow a specific form or pattern of construction.
The earliest known use of the noun canto is in the late 1500s. OED's earliest evidence for canto is from 1590, in the writing of Edmund Spenser, poet and administrator in Ireland. canto is a borrowing from Italian.
