Opera is Italian, and it means, flatly, "a work." The Italian comes from Latin opera, "work, effort," which is grammatically the plural of opus treated as a feminine singular — so the word English uses for the grandest of art forms is the same word as the opus in a composer's catalogue, and both mean labour.
English took it in the 1640s, shortly after the thing itself was invented: opera was devised around 1600 by a circle of Florentine enthusiasts who believed they were reconstructing how Greek drama had been performed. The word belongs to the Italian musical layer of English along with piano, soprano, tempo, crescendo and concerto — a vocabulary English borrowed wholesale because Italy dominated the art. Auden's observation is the best thing anyone has said about the form: "No good opera plot can be sensible. People do not sing when they are feeling sensible."
opera (n.) "a drama sung" [Klein], "a form of extended dramatic composition in which music is essential and predominant," 1640s, from Italian opera , literally "a work, labor, composition," from Latin opera "work, effort" (Latin plural regarded as feminine singular), secondary (abstract) noun from operari "to work," from opus (genitive operis ) "a work" (from PIE root *op- "to work, produce in abundance"). Explained in "Elson's Music Dictionary" as, "a form of musical composition evolved shortly before 1600, by some enthusiastic Florentine amateurs who sought to bring back the Greek plays to the modern stage." No good opera plot can be sensible. ... People do not sing when they are feeling sensible. [W.H. Auden, 1961] As a branch of dramatic art, it is attested from 1759. First record of opera glass "small binoculars to aid vision at the theater" is from 1738. Opera-house , "theater devoted chiefly to opera performances," is from 1720. also from 1640s
opera came in through Later and wider borrowings, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
How that family writes these sounds
| an unstressed vowel ending a word about food or music | Italian or Spanish: -o, -a, -ipiano, opera, spaghetti, tornado |
What gives it away on the page
| -o/-a/-i endings, gh for hard g, cc | Italian — music, food, and architecture.piano, opera, graffiti, spaghetti, ghetto, broccoli, balcony |
Placing it without the spelling
| music, food, and architecture from Italy | Italianpiano, opera, spaghetti, ghetto |
| an unstressed vowel on the end, in food, music, or weather | Italian or Spanishpiano, opera, tornado, cargo |
Later and wider borrowings in the spelling guide · guess another word's family