2. The place in any public hall appropriated to a band of instrumental musicians.
3. (Mus.) (a) Loosely: A band of instrumental musicians performing in a theater, concert hall, or other
place of public amusement. (b) Strictly: A band suitable for the performance of symphonies, overtures,
etc., as well as for the accompaniment of operas, oratorios, cantatas, masses, and the like, or of vocal
and instrumental solos. (c) A band composed, for the largest part, of players of the various viol instruments,
many of each kind, together with a proper complement of wind instruments of wood and brass; — as
distinguished from a military or street band of players on wind instruments, and from an assemblage of
solo players for the rendering of concerted pieces, such as septets, octets, and the like.
4. (Mus.) The instruments employed by a full band, collectively; as, an orchestra of forty stringed instruments,
with proper complement of wind instruments.
Orchestral
(Or"ches*tral) a. Of or pertaining to an orchestra; suitable for, or performed in or by, an orchestra.
Orchestration
(Or`ches*tra"tion) n. (Mus.) The arrangement of music for an orchestra; orchestral treatment
of a composition; — called also instrumentation.
Orchestre
(Or"ches*tre) n. [F.] See Orchestra.
Orchestric
(Or*ches"tric) a. Orchestral.
Orchestrion
(Or*ches"tri*on) n. A large music box imitating a variety of orchestral instruments.
Orchid
(Or"chid) n. [See Orchis.] (Bot.) Any plant of the order Orchidaceæ. See Orchidaceous.
Orchidaceous
(Or`chi*da"ceous) a. (Bot.) Pertaining to, or resembling, a natural order (Orchidaceæ) of
endogenous plants of which the genus Orchis is the type. They are mostly perennial herbs having the
stamens and pistils united in a single column, and normally three petals and three sepals, all adherent
to the ovary. The flowers are curiously shaped, often resembling insects, the odd or lower petal (called
the lip) being unlike the others, and sometimes of a strange and unexpected appearance. About one
hundred species occur in the United States, but several thousand in the tropics.
Over three hundred genera are recognized.
Orchidean
(Or*chid"e*an) a. (Bot.) Orchidaceous.
Orchideous
(Or*chid"e*ous) a. (Bot.) Same as Orchidaceous.
Orchidologist
(Or`chid*ol"o*gist) n. One versed in orchidology.
Orchidology
(Or`chid*ol"o*gy) n. [Gr. the orchis + -logy.] The branch of botany which treats of orchids.
