sotto voce
/ˌsɒtəʊ ˈvəʊtʃeɪ/
"sotto-voce" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sotto voce” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In soft tones; quiet.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sotto-voce · sotto voce · English
sotto voce · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sotto voce |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˌsɒtəʊ ˈvəʊtʃeɪ/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “sotto voce” in English
Rare enough to double-check
sotto voce is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˌsɒtəʊ ˈvəʊtʃeɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for sotto voce in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Italian sottovoce (literally “under [the] voice”). The correct English form is sotto voce, spelled S-O-T-T-O- -V-O-C-E.
Definition
- 1In soft tones; quiet.
- 2Soft, instruments or voice.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sotto voce appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Then a man called for her, and began to make coarse jokes. But Mr. Pappleworth nodded his head in the direction of the boy, and the talk went on sotto voce.
‘Hello?’ she shouted, but still her voice came out barely louder than a sotto voce whisper.
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian sottovoce (literally “under [the] voice”).
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.