forte

Meanings

Noun

• A strength or talent.
• The strong part of a sword blade, close to the hilt.
• A passage in music to be played loudly; a loud section of music.

Adjective

• Loud. Used as a dynamic directive in sheet music in its abbreviated form, "f.", to indicate raising the volume of the music. (Abbreviated in musical notation with an f, the Unicode character 1D191.)

Adverb

• Loudly.

Origin

• Borrowed 1640–50; earlier fort < Middle French; disyllabic pronunciation by association with Italian forte, from Latin fortis ("strong"). fort, and fortis.
• Borrowed from Italian forte ("strong").