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Glite Dictionary
🎷 Five musicians 5️⃣ A group of five 🎼 Music for five
quintet

quintet

4 4.2
Five musicians or singers who perform together
  • noun
  • /kwɪnˈtɛt/
translation icon : quinteto
  • The jazz quintet performed beautifully at the concert hall last night.
  • Brass Quintet
  • woodwind quintet

The first time I had a chance to talk to Miles, I saw his quintet in the, in what was the name of that club in New York?

Examples

  • Hi, we're the Bremen Quintet.

    Ricki and the Flash (2015)

  • A few cadets played instruments, and both a bounce band and a wind quintet were active.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • The Emmet Ray Hot Quintet.

    Sweet and Lowdown (1999)

  • Here are the surviving members of the Steinway Quintet.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • Second prize to the Toby Reiser Quintet.

    The Sound of Music (1965)

  • There will be a special performance by the Parris Island Marine Corps Brass Quintet.

    Blog text (8)

  • Here, the brass quintet warms up in the sunny climate before rehearsing for the concert.

    Academic text (1997)

  • Dave Douglas Quintet + Aoife O'Donovan at the Regattabar

    Blog text (16)

  • Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much on behalf of the quintet: Chico Hamilton, Fred Katz... Paul Horn, Carson Smith, and myself.

    Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

  • Guitarist Dennis Rea leads Moraine, Seattle's best and brightest progressive rock quintet, in a rare performance in PDX as part of Ninkasi's Jazz night at the Blue Monk.

    Blog text (20)

Synonyms

fivesome
vsquintet
1 6.3

A group of five people who work or play together

is used only for five musicians or singers performing together
quintette
vsquintet
  • Archaic
7.5

A group of five musicians or singers who perform together

has identical meaning but is spelled differently

Compounds

string quintet
1 5.3

A group of five musicians who play string instruments

How Many

big band
16 3.0
quintet
4 4.2
quartet
30 3.5
jazz group
1 2.1
trio
18 3.3
duo
75 2.8

Surface Forms

quintet singular
quintets plural

Morphology

quintet = quint + et

Formally built from the combining form 'quint-' (five) + the suffix '-et', but 'quint' is not a productive standalone English word, so learners who only know 'five' may not fully recognize the construction.

Etymology

The word quintet comes from the Latin root quint- meaning 'fifth'. In music, a quintet is five musicians or singers who perform together, so the name tells you it has five members.