Definition of "stretto" []

• Music A close succession or overlapping of statements of the subject in a fugue, especially in the final section. (noun)
• Music A final section, as of an opera, performed with an acceleration in tempo to produce a climax. Also called stretta. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "She plunged into her apostrophe with most self-sacrificing vigor at the beginning of the scene, and was prodigal in the use of her voice in its early moments; but when the culmination of its passion was reached, in what would be called the stretto of the piece in the old nomenclature, she could not respond to its increased demands."
• "My own only really substantive reference for him is L'opera architettonica e urbanistica di Armando Brasini dall'urbe Massima al Ponte sullo stretto di Messina published in 1979, an enormous and rather flimsy paperback edition of which I purchased in Rome when I was studying there."
• "I haven't finished Morson's book yet but am rushing to share the following, because embroidery, or sewing, is also for me a symbol of the feminine desire to create beauty in the home and for the family and because Tolstoy's reference to broderie anglaise comes as the stretto in what is to me the most beautiful scene in Anna Karenina."