repertoire means A list of dramas, operas, pieces, parts, etc., which a company or a person has rehearsed and is prepared to perform or display.
repertoire is pronounced /ˈɹɛp.ə.twɑː/.
Why “repertoire” is a great word
The complete set of works, skills, or behaviors that a performer, company, or individual is prepared to present. From French répertoire, from Middle French repertoire, from Late Latin repertōrium ("an inventory, list"), first attested in English with this sense c. 1845–1847. Unlike "repertory" (which often denotes a specific theater company or its system of rotation) or "inventory" (a sterile, often commercial catalogue of items on hand), repertoire implies a living, ready-to-deploy cache. It is the pianist’s fingers finding a nocturne from muscle memory, the comedian’s effortless shift from anecdote to impression, and the octopus’s repertoire of disguises perfected through generations—the performed proof of what has been gathered, practiced, and made one’s own, a portable archive of competence against the uncertainty of what comes next.
Etymology
Borrowed from French répertoire, from Middle French repertoire, from Late Latin repertōrium (“an inventory, list, repertory”). Doublet of repertory.
noun
- A list of dramas, operas, pieces, parts, etc., which a company or a person has rehearsed and is prepared to perform or display.“The conjurer expanded his repertoire with some new tricks.”
- The set of skills, abilities, experiences, etc., possessed by a person.
- The set of vocalisations used by a bird.
- An amount, body, or collection of something.
- A processor's instruction set.
- An abstract set of characters, independent of their encoding.“ISO Latin 1 repertoire”
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- repertory 91% match — A repertoire. vs repertoire →
- oeuvre 83% match — A work of art, music or literature. vs repertoire →
- lexicon 82% match — The vocabulary of a language. vs repertoire →
- rehearsal 82% match — The practising of something which is to be performed before an audience, usually to test or improve the interaction between several participating people, or to allow technical adjustments with respect to staging to be done. vs repertoire →
- etude 81% match — A short piece of music, designed to give a performer practice in a particular area or skill. vs repertoire →
- armamentarium 81% match — All of the equipment available for carrying out a task, especially all the equipment used by a physician in the practice of medicine. vs repertoire →
- prelude 81% match — An introductory or preliminary performance or event. vs repertoire →
- improvise 80% match — To make something up or invent it as one goes on; to proceed guided only by imagination, intuition, and guesswork rather than by a careful plan. vs repertoire →