duet

Etymology

PIE word *dwóh₁ From Italian duetto (“short musical composition for two voices”), diminutive of due (“two”).

noun

1. (music) A musical composition in two parts, each performed by a single voice (singer, instrument or univoce ensemble).
2. (music) A song composed for and/or performed by a duo.
3. A pair or couple, especially one that is harmonious or elegant.
   The fare is Caribbean with an Asian touch — millefeuille of sun-dried tomato, Paris mushrooms and chargrilled local asparagus followed by a duet of chicken and shrimp... 2005, James Henderson, Caribbean and the Bahamas

verb

1. (intransitive) To perform a duet.
   1822, Lord Byron, Letter to Mr. Moore, Pisa, July 12, 1822, in The Letters of George Gordon Byron, edited by Mathilde Blind, London: Walter Scott, 1887, p. 277, https://books.google.ca/books?id=-DF4Zs_eezUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false When you can spare time from duetting, coquetting, and claretting with your Hibernians of both sexes, let me have a line from you.
   He was about as accordantly coupled with Dr. Middleton in discourse as a drum duetting with a bass-viol […] 1879, George Meredith, chapter 20, in The Egoist
   ‘Ti-yi-yi-yime is on my side, yes it is,’ I used to yodel, duetting with Mick Jagger as I gyrated alone in my student room. 2011, Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending, Random House Canada, page 45
2. (intransitive, zoology, of pairs of animals) To communicate (warnings, mating calls, etc.) through song.
   1975, Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Belknap Press, p. 223, Duetting species are typically monogamous.
   In several dozen species of birds there has been found a phenomenon known as duetting, or antiphonal singing: the first part of a song is executed by one partner of a pair, then the other partner very promptly chimes in to sing the second part. 1986, Thomas A. Sebeok, chapter 7, in I Think I Am a Verb: More Contributions to the Doctrine of Signs, New York: Springer Science+Business, published 2013, page 87
3. (transitive) To perform (sing, play, etc.) as a duet.
   After the Lord's Prayer the Missionaries duetted a hymn while the children stared at me. 1941, Emily Carr, chapter 1, in Klee Wyck
4. (transitive) (of two people) To say at the same time, to chorus.
   “My dear papa!” duetted the girls; but there was something in the husband and father's face, that told the three ladies it would be worse than useless to raise that question at present. 1864, Charles Whitehead, “The Stock-Broker”, in Heads of the People: or, Portraits of the English, volume I, London: Henry G. Bohn, page 23
   1884, Anonymous, A Speculation, Denver: D. M. Richards, Chapter 12, p. 50, https://books.google.ca/books?id=RsFQAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false “A bear!” exclaimed the Major, jumping up and coming forward. “A bear!” dueted the Doctor and Right Rev., pressing hastily to the front.