Home › Glossary › Letter C

Cuatro

Musical Instrument
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A small four-stringed guitar central to Venezuelan and Puerto Rican folk music

Detailed Definition
The cuatro appears in poetry as a voice of jíbaro (rural) identity and national pride; its bright, rhythmic strumming underpins décimas and aguinaldos, and poets use it to celebrate vernacular wisdom, resilience, and the intimate bond between land, language, and song.
Example
Example in poetry:
The cuatro’s strum “carries the jíbaro’s wisdom in four bright strings”; In a Venezuelan poem, it “sings décimas under mango trees”; The instrument’s rhythm “matches the heartbeat of the Andes”; A lyric compares its small frame to the resilience of folk memory.
Additional Notes
The cuatro is the national instrument of Venezuela and Puerto Rico, with regional variations in tuning and construction; in poetry, it embodies jíbaro (rural) identity, national pride, and the fusion of Indigenous, African, and Spanish influences; students can use it to explore how small string instruments anchor folk lyricism, especially in décima and aguinaldo traditions that blend music and verse.
Also Known As
Venezuelan cuatro Puerto Rican cuatro
Skip to main content