A cello — the big string instrument you play sitting down, holding it between your knees, with a deep warm sound below the violin and viola. Violoncello is its full, formal name; cello is the short form that everyone actually uses. So when do you meet the long word? On concert programmes, in printed music, in the title of a piece ("Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra"), and in museums. In speech it is almost never used — a cellist says cello, an orchestra says cello, a shop says cello. Using violoncello in conversation sounds either very formal or slightly funny, like saying "omnibus" for bus. The spelling hides a joke about size. The word is built from violone — an old large bass instrument, itself a viola made big — with a small ending added on top. So violoncello means roughly "the little big viola." And cello, our everyday word, is just the tail end of that, which is why it is sometimes still written 'cello with an apostrophe in old scores.

大提琴 (正式全名)。日常一律講 cello；violoncello 只出現在節目單、樂譜標題那種正式印刷品上。